Reliability control for uncertain half-car active suspension systems with possible actuator faults

Active suspension systems have received increased importance for improving automotive safety and comfort. In active suspensions, actuators are placed between the car body and wheel-axle, and are able to both add and dissipate energy from the system, which enables the suspension to control the attitude of the vehicle, to reduce the effects of the vibrations, and then to increase ride comfort and vehicle road handling. However, the attained benefits are paralleled with the increasing possibility of component failures. In this study, a fault-tolerant control approach is proposed to deal with the problem of fault accommodation for unknown actuator failures of active suspension systems, where an adaptive robust controller is designed to adapt and compensate the parameter uncertainties, external disturbances and uncertain non-linearities generated by the system itself and actuator failures. Comparative simulation studies are then given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed controllers.