Vibration control for a half-car model with adaptation of the magnetorheological damper model

The paper presents vehicle vibration control using magnetorheological (MR) dampers. Typical algorithms to control this semi-active suspension need the inverse model of the damper. Modelling of the damper is not a trivial task because of its highly non-linear behaviour. Also, effectiveness of damping vibrations caused by the road depends significantly on the quality of the model. Therefore, an identification algorithm based on iterative estimation of immeasurable signals is proposed. Two control algorithms are tested - Skyhook and FxLMS (Filtered-x LMS). Simulation experiments for a half-car model excited by road bumps show usefulness of this approach. It was also observed that the FxLMS is not very sensitive to modelling errors as it includes an internal mechanism of adaptation. On the other hand, the Skyhook fails if the model is inaccurate, so it should be used together with the identification of the MR damper.