Preview Control of an Active Vehicle Suspension System Based on a Four-Degree-of-Freedom Half-Car Model

In recent years, much research has been carried out in the design of active and semi-active suspensions of vehicles for better vehicle response. In order to investigate the effectiveness not only in riding comfort but also in road handling, a half-car model with the hydro-pneumatic active suspension system is proposed in this study. Whole preview control method and partial preview control method, in which the road information detected by the front wheel is sent to the controller to decide the input to rear suspension, are taken into design of the active suspension control system. Results of numerical simulation show that satisfactory control efficiency could be achieved in both whole preview control and partial preview control. The comparison of results suggests that whole preview control method can provide better system performance, but the partial preview control method is superior due to its lower cost.