Off-road vehicle active suspension using fluidic muscle

Enhancing vehicle stability, while maintaining vehicle control and ride comfort, can significantly improve the chances of accident avoidance in an emergency situation. While traditional vehicle suspension systems provide a compromise between ride and handling, this research study proposes the design of a controllable pneumatic suspension system using fluidic muscle pneumatic actuators, providing a low natural frequency response, for improving ride comfort, but having the ability to respond to severe dynamic maneuvers by increasing the suspension stiffness. In addition, individual corner stiffness and damping will be controlled to manage pitch, roll and yaw movement, as well as ride height, in response to road inputs, direction changes, and vehicle load fluctuations. The objective of this research is to develop an active suspension control model that will dynamically optimise both the ride and handling parameters of a pneumatic fluidic muscle suspension on a light, off-road experimental motor vehicle. This paper focusses on phase one of the study, namely the research and design of the active pneumatic suspension system, and also provides test results of fluidic muscle characterisation tests to determine their suitability in this application.