Vibration control system with a proportionally controlled pneumatic actuator

A vibration control system based on an air spring and a proportional electro-pneumatic control transducer was developed at this Institute. The system is driven by compressed air and uses a combination of feed-forward and feed-back control algorithms. A dummy system was successfully tested on a laboratory vibration simulator for use as the suspension system of driver´s seat for vehicles with unsprung chassis (earth-moving machinery or wheeled tractors). The improvement of driver´s seat vibration control properties due to this system, as tested under narrow-band random excitation, is of the order of 8-10 dB, e.g. threefold. The demand of compressed air is approximately 10-12 m³/h @ 8 bar. The system could be used for vibration control in various automotive applications.