Design of two optimal controllers for mechatronic suspension system

The purpose of mechatronic suspension system, or customary name active suspension system, is to improve ride comfort and road handling. In this research an analytical investigation of a two degree of freedom quarter car model, subjected to a bump road disturbance was performed, and the advantages of mechatronic over conventional passive suspension systems were examined. Two types of optimal controller schemes namely, PID and LQR were utilized, subjected to three different load cases. In this work MATLAB/SIMULIK was used for simulate the system. Both the passive and active systems were compared in time domain analysis. Results show body acceleration, tire load and suspension deflection were reduced, indicating that the mechatronic suspension system has better potential in improving both comfort and road holding. Additionally, it can also be concluded that LQR controller is better than the PID controller scheme due to significant settling time reduction as well as peak reduction.