Investigation of the Energy Regeneration of Active Suspension System in Hybrid Electric Vehicles

This paper investigates the idea of the energy regeneration of active suspension (AS) system in hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs). For this purpose, extensive simulation and control methods are utilized to develop a simultaneous simulation in which both HEV powertrain and AS systems are simulated in a unified medium. In addition, a hybrid energy storage system (ESS) comprising electrochemical batteries and ultracapacitors (UCs) is proposed for this application. Simulation results reveal that the regeneration of the AS energy results in an improved fuel economy. Moreover, by using the hybrid ESS, AS load fluctuations are transferred from the batteries to the UCs, which, in turn, will improve the efficiency of the batteries and increase their life.