Fuzzy control for a semi-active vehicle suspension with a magnetorheological damper

In order to enhance ride comfort and vehicle stability, numerous control approaches have been applied in vehicle suspension research. One of these control approaches is the family of fuzzy controllers. The literature is rich in research about fuzzy techniques focused on vehicle suspension performance but exists a lack of work on semi-active suspensions models that includes accurate actuator dynamics as in the present investigation. In addition, the reported fuzzy controllers work with too many rules in their decision engine, increasing the computational time to generate a control signal, and making real-time control a difficult task. This paper work presents a trial and error tuned fuzzy controller addressed for a new two-degrees-of-freedom one-quarter-vehicle semi-active suspension model with a magnetorheological (MR) damper. Moreover, the use of singleton-like output fuzzy as in this research reduces the computational time to generate the control signal. Simulation work in MATLAB, compare comfort and stability, in frequency and time domains, of an average city car for: a passive suspension, an H_∞ tuned suspension, and the proposed fuzzy controller developed herein. For the simulation tests presented in this paper, the semi-active suspension with fuzzy control improves the H_∞ approach. Even though the fuzzy controller tuning, and membership functions are based on the trial and error method, the obtained results are excellent. The proposed approach is effective and simple.