Application of model order reduction to a hydropneumatic vehicle suspension

The simulation, analysis and controller design of technical systems are frequently complicated by the complexity of the corresponding (mostly nonlinear) system models. The method presented here can simplify these tasks by reducing the number of state equations describing the system. Starting from a special state space representation the nonlinear terms are taken over into the reduced model and all couplings of state variables, input variables and nonlinear functions are redetermined. A dominance analysis helps in choosing the system order and the dominant state variables. The order of the treated model of a vehicle suspension is reduced from order 10 to 7 or 5, shortening the simulation time by a factor of 10 or 12, respectively