Research on Vehicle Magneto-rheological Suspensions Vibration Control and Test

A vehicle with independent magneto-rheological (MR) suspensions is regarded as a fleetly moving robot. To decrease MR suspension model simplification errors and to enhance the effect of MR suspension complicated vibration control, a hierarchical intelligent control (HIC) system is proposed. There are four independent local adaptive fuzzy (AF) controllers in control level and one coordination controller in coordination level. To restrain vibration of vehicle sprung mass and un-sprung mass, at the control level, a semi-active AF controller is designed for each MR suspension system, which can online adjust quantization factors and scale factor of fuzzy controller by human-simulation intelligent parameter modifying algorithm. At the coordination level, a controller is designed to coordinate the four local independent AF controllers, by adjusting their output parameters according to vehicle running attitude and characteristics of MR suspensions in different conditions. To validate the real results of hierarchical control, a MR suspension control and test system is set up and implemented on a mini automotive vehicle, which is equipped with four controllable MR dampers. Road tests under various conditions indicate that the HIC system can effectively reduce vertical vibration, improve the ride comfort, handle stability of vehicle, and show adaptiveness and robustness.