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Article in Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part D Journal of Automobile Engineering
February 1998
DOI: 10.1243/0954407981525812
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79
C Kim and P I Ro
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, North Carolina State University, USA
Abstract: In this paper, the control of an active suspension system using a quarter car model has been
investigated. Due to the presence of non-linearities such as a hardening spring, a quadratic damping force
and the `tyre lift-off' phenomenon in a real suspension system, it is very difficult to achieve desired
performance using linear control techniques. To ensure robustness for a wide range of operating conditions,
a sliding mode controller has been designed and compared with an existing non-linear adaptive control
scheme in the literature. The sliding mode scheme utilizes a variant of a sky-hook damper system as a
reference model which does not require real-time measurement of road input. The robustness of the scheme
is investigated through computer simulation, and the efficacy of the scheme is shown both in time and
frequency domains. In particular, when the vertical load to the sprung mass is changed, the sliding mode
control resumes normal operation faster than the non-linear self-tuning control and the passive system by
factors of 3 and 6, respectively, and suspension deflection is kept to a minimum. Other results showed
advantages of the sliding mode control scheme in a quarter car system with realistic non-linearities.
NOTATION 1 INTRODUCTION
ci coefficients of non-linear damping force The suspension system of an automobile has two major
csh damping constant of sky-hook system tasks. The first is to isolate the car body with its passenger
csm damping constant of reference model from external disturbance inputs which mainly come from
fd damping force road irregularities. The second is to maintain a firm contact
fs spring force between the road and the tyres to provide guidance along
ft tyre force the track. In a conventional suspension system which
g acceleration of gravity comprises only passive components, the task of providing
ki coefficients of non-linear spring force both ride comfort and good handling calls for conflicting
k sm spring constant of reference model requirements. To support the weight and to follow the track
K switching gain a stiff suspension is needed on one hand, but, to isolate the
L lateral load transfer disturbance from the road a soft suspension is required on
ms sprung mass the other.
msm sprung mass of reference model Many kinds of active suspensions have been developed
mu unsprung mass to improve both ride quality and handling performance. For
u control force input more than 20 years, research has shown that a linear
xi states of suspension system optimal control scheme provides a good way to design an
xr road disturbance variation active suspension system which can improve the vehicle
xs sprung mass displacement ride and handling performance at the same time. This is
xu unsprung mass displacement based on the assumption that there exists a perfect (broad-
x suspension deflection bandwidth) actuator, which can generate the required force
fast enough and the system can be linearized within some
operating region.
In most cases, linear optimal control theory has been
applied using a two degree-of-freedom model, with full
The MS was received on 17 February 1997 and was accepted for state or partial state feedbacks (15). A control scheme,
publication on 18 July 1997. so-called `sky-hook damping', in which the absolute
D00897 # IMechE 1998 Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 212 Part D
80 C KIM AND P I RO
velocity of sprung mass is required, has also been applied spring, damper and tyre `lift-off'. By comparing the
to commercial systems (6). simulation results of the linear and non-linear models, it
Up to this point most researchers have dealt with a linear will be shown that the non-linearities of a suspension
model in developing control laws. However, since a real system should be considered for developing an active
vehicle suspension has inherent non-linearities and uncer- suspension system. Next, the non-linear self-tuning scheme
tainties it is not sufficient to represent the real system with (13) is reviewed to verify whether the existing non-linear
a linear model (7, 8). In the early 1990s many studies began control scheme does work in a realistic non-linear suspen-
to consider non-linearities, uncertainties and unmodelled sion system with highly non-linear characteristics and=or
parts of a real suspension system, which required the use of uncertainties. Then its robustness is investigated, which
a non-linear model and some adaptive or robust form of shows a limitation of adaptive schemes with respect to the
control scheme. fast-varying uncertainties.
A classical form of adaptive scheme for a vehicle active To improve the robustness, a sliding mode control
suspension system was introduced in the late 1980s by Hac scheme is developed in this study which is unique to the
(9). During driving, the interaction between the road and active suspension application. A modified sky-hook dam-
vehicle changes drastically depending on the road surface per system which eliminates the necessity of a road signal
and vehicle speed. This change must be taken into account is used as the reference model in this study. This makes the
to ensure optimal operation of the system in all driving whole process simple and results in better ride quality and
conditions. This optimal operation necessitated a form of handling performance over the non-linear self-tuning
controller, the gain of which can be adjusted to the type of control scheme.
road surface and vehicle speed. This is the starting point of
the adaptive control scheme, in which a set of feedback
gains is varied by the change of power spectral density of
terrain roughness obtained by processing the measurement
2 MODELLING OF THE SUSPENSION SYSTEM
data. A comparison of adaptive LQG and non-linear
controllers for active suspensions can be found in reference
In this section, both linear and non-linear models of the
(10).
quarter-car suspension system are introduced and time
A model reference adaptive control scheme was pro-
responses of two models are compared to demonstrate the
posed in reference (6) which resulted in better performance
limitation of the linear suspension model for developing an
than active suspension systems with non-adaptive control-
active suspension system. Figure 1 illustrates a model for
lers and passive suspension systems. In the paper, 10 to 30
the suspension system.
per cent variances of suspension components and sprung
The equations of motion for body bouncing motion are
mass were examined to check the adaptation capability
using a single degree-of-freedom model. Also, an explicit
ms xs fs fd ms g (1)
adaptive control for the active suspension system was
introduced in reference (11), which is based on a self- mu xu f s f d ft mu g (2)
tuning controller design. It consisted of on-line low-order
recursive parameter estimation, closed-form algebraic gain
computation and manipulation for the control parameter.
The self-tuning based adaptive control scheme can provide
considerable adaptability to variances in the suspension
characteristics and changes in the sprung load (payload
change, brake, cornering).
However, if the system is highly non-linear over the
range of operation, the adaptive schemes may show severe
limitations. For example, if the wheel stroke is so increased
that the stiffness of the suspension is beyond the linear
range, it might be difficult to identify parameters through
ordinary identification. Gordon et al. (12) proposed a
control scheme using a realistic non-linear suspension
model, but their study of robustness was still limited to a
linear region.
The goal of the current study is to develop a robust
control scheme for an active suspension system which
maintains good performance in the presence of severe non-
linearities or uncertainties (unknown parameters and struc-
tures). This study begins by developing a realistic non-
linear suspension model which is composed of non-linear Fig. 1 Modelling of quarter-car suspension system
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 212 Part D D00897 # IMechE 1998
A SLIDING MODE CONTROLLER 81
D00897 # IMechE 1998 Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 212 Part D
82 C KIM AND P I RO
Fig. 3 Modelling of non-linear spring force [wheel stroke (m) versus suspension force (N)]
Fig. 4 Asymmetric damping property of actual suspension system [damper speed (m=s) versus damping force (N)]
very important role in handling performance. During stiffness on the response of the quarter-car model, sinusoi-
cornering on a rough road, tyre lift-off may cause a very dal responses of the passive suspension system using both
dangerous situation which reduces the lateral grip of the linear and non-linear models are examined. The linear
tyre and makes the vehicle unstable or uncontrollable (not model is derived by linearizing the non-linear property
able to steer). about an operation point. Two different amplitudes of road
In order to show the effect of this asymmetric tyre input are given to the system in order to investigate the
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 212 Part D D00897 # IMechE 1998
A SLIDING MODE CONTROLLER 83
effect of road input on the non-linearity. The excitation tight wheel slip control on both dry and ice-like surfaces
frequency (about 1.5 Hz) is chosen to be close to the (18). Alleyne and Hedrick (19) applied the sliding control
natural frequency of the sprung mass bouncing mode. scheme to an electrohydraulic actuator of an active sus-
Figure 5 shows the time response of the sprung mass pension system, in which the control object was to match a
displacement for the two models. In the figure the desired control force (`inner loop' control).
difference between non-linear I and II is the addition of the
tyre lift-off effect in the latter. When the road input is small 3.1 Modified reference model
there is no big difference between the two models, since the
linear model data are approximated by constants (k s , cs ). The first step in deriving a sliding mode controller is to
However, as the excitation amplitude increases the re- choose a reference model. The well-known sky-hook
sponses become quite different from each other. From the damping system is chosen as a reference model as in
result, it is clear that vehicle non-linearities should be reference (7).
considered in developing a more accurate system model, If the system is linear and all parameters are exactly
from which a more reliable control algorithm can be known, the simple control law Fd csh x_ s can be used to
developed. produce the desired sky-hook damping effect. However,
since the actual system contains many uncertainties,
including system non-linearities, a more robust control
scheme is required. In this paper, a sliding mode control
3 SLIDING MODE CONTROL SCHEME scheme is proposed based on the error between the sky-
hook damping system as a reference model and the real
Since the variable structure control (VSC) theory was suspension system.
introduced in the USSR in the early 1950s it has been In a typical implementation of the `model following'
applied to many fields in robotics, aerospace and auto- technique, system input is provided to the reference model,
motive systems (14, 15). VSC has been used to develop a and the difference of responses between the system and the
general controller for a variety of systems including single- reference model is compensated by a controller. However,
input single-output, multiple-input multiple-output, linear, in the case of a suspension system, it is very difficult to
non-linear, discrete-time and stochastic systems (16, 17). provide the road height signal to the reference model since
In the application for automotive systems, sliding mode it is very difficult to measure. In this study, a simplified
control is applied to advanced braking systems (ABS) reference model is used to solve this problem, in which a
wheel-slip control due to the non-linearity of the vehicle road input signal is not required.
traction system, where the results indicate that it provides As shown in Fig. 6, a modified reference model is
Fig. 5 The time responses for different models [the displacement of the sprung mass (m) versus time]
D00897 # IMechE 1998 Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 212 Part D
84 C KIM AND P I RO
x_ p f (xp , t) Bp u
x_ m f m (9)
where
xm [xsm x_ sm ]T
Fig. 6 The active suspension system using the modified refer-
ence model T
1
f m x_ sm ( f sm f dm csh x_ sm ) g
msm
developed based on an alternative state for the road input.
and
Since the tyre is almost ten times stiffer than the suspension
spring, in general, the motion of the unsprung mass can f sm k sm (xsm xu ), f dm csm ( x_ sm x_ u )
serve as a good approximation to the road input within the
normal operating frequency range of a suspension system.
Taking the error e as the difference between the two state
Using this approximation, the measured states of the
vectors, xp and xm, the error dynamics can be obtained as
unsprung mass can be used directly as input to the sky-
hook damping reference model.
e xp xm (10)
Next, a sliding mode controller is derived to force the
sprung mass to track the reference sprung mass motion
e_ x_ p x_ m
T T
[xs x_ s xs ] ! [xsm x_ sm xsm ] (6) fm Bm um f p f p (xp , t) Bp u Fw
(11)
3.2 The derivation of control law
From the equations of motion of the plant, equations (1) Next, define a time-varying surface in the state-space such
and (2), the state variable form of the equations can be that
obtained as follows:
S(t) GT e 0 (12)
x_ 1 x2 (7a)
where G [ g1 g 2 ]T . The sliding surface can be inter-
1 preted as the surface of sprung mass state error between the
x_ 2 ( fs f d u) g (7b)
ms plant and the reference model.
Assuming the dynamics are exactly known and no
x_ 3 x4 (7c) disturbance affects the system (i.e. f p (xp , t) Fw 0),
the equivalent control is defined as
1
x_ 4 ( fs fd ft u) g (7d)
mu
S_ 0 (13)
Now, the range of the switching gain K to make the system 4.1 Time domain analysis
stable is to be found (16). If u is replaced in equation (14)
by equation (16), the Lyapunov candidate can be tested as In order to investigate the performance of a sliding mode
active suspension system, a numerical simulation is
1 d 2 performed using MATLAB. Comparison of the perform-
(S ) < jSj (19) ance of the sliding mode control with the non-linear
2 dt
adaptive system of reference (20) is carried out. In the
Appendix, a detailed derivation of the scheme is presented.
or
The road input condition is the same as that used in Section
2, in which the sinusoidal input with 1.5 Hz excitation
S S_ < jSj (20) frequency is close to the natural frequency of the sprung
mass bouncing mode.
Here, should be positive. And the derivative of the sliding Figure 8 shows the comparison between the sliding mode
parameter is described as (SM) active system and the self-tuning control (STC) active
system. From this result it can be concluded that both
S_ < sgn (S) (21) control schemes can track the reference model (ideal sky-
D00897 # IMechE 1998 Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 212 Part D
86 C KIM AND P I RO
Fig. 8 Sinusoidal response of STC and SM active systems [the acceleration of the sprung mass (m=s2 ), deflections
of the suspension and tyre (m) and the control force (N)]
hook system) despite the non-linearities in the suspension of the sprung mass and faster damping tyre deflection using
system. However, when a discrete road input (step input) the SM system. In general, it is obvious that the STC
was given, the SM active system was better than the non- control scheme shows limitations when the system experi-
linear STC system. Figures 9 and 10 show the step and ences any discrete event (e.g. sudden change of parameter
bump passing responses, which show less peak acceleration or road condition).
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 212 Part D D00897 # IMechE 1998
A SLIDING MODE CONTROLLER 87
4.2 Frequency domain analysis is a load transfer (say, L) between the inner and outer
wheel due to the lateral acceleration. From a static point of
In this section the frequency response of the proposed SM view, this is similar to the change of sprung mass with
active system is calculated. A swept sine input is given to amount L= g, where L is the load transfer and g is the
the system and the steady state magnitudes at discrete acceleration due to gravity. Although the actual load
frequencies are collected. For a small amplitude of road change is proportional to the lateral acceleration change, a
input, there is little difference between linear and non- step change of load with the amount L 0:3 ms g was
linear models since the suspension parameters remain
given to the sprung mass for the worst case.
almost constant. In this simulation the amplitude is chosen
In this case, the switching gain, K, plays an important
to be 0.1 m, which can be considered as a high stroke of
role since the controller has to remove the `uncertainty'. To
suspension wheel.
see the effect of the switching gain, the values of 50 and
It can be seen from Figs 11 and 12 that the character-
1000 are chosen in this simulation. Figure 14 shows the
istics of active systems (solid lines) are very similar to each
simulation results of the passive case, two active cases
other regardless of system non-linearities. The passive
(K 50, K 1000) and the reference model. From the
system results (dotted lines) show quite different character- results with respect to suspension deflection, it is apparent
istics between the systems (linear and non-linear). Specifi-
that the active system 1 (when K 50) and the passive
cally, a jump phenomenon is observed for the non-linear
system cannot compromise the change of the static load,
passive suspension system, which is typical in a hardening
while the active system 2 (when K 1000) shows little
spring. These results show that the SM active suspension
change in the suspension deflection.
system compensates for the system non-linearities to track
Figure 15 shows a comparison of the two control
the desired reference model (ideal sky-hook system). The
schemes (SM and non-linear STC) when the same load
corresponding control forces are shown in Fig. 13, in which
change was given. The simulation results show the im-
the gap between two curves corresponds to the control provement of ride quality in the SM active system; the peak
force required to compensate for system non-linearities.
value of sprung mass acceleration of the SM system is less
than that of the STC system.
Also, in view of handling performance, the SM active
4.3 Robustness of the sliding mode control scheme
system shows fast damping of the tyre deflection and little
To consider the robustness of SM active suspension to change of the suspension deflection. It is worth noting that
external disturbances, the change of vertical load which is the suspension deflection of the non-linear STC case
experienced during a cornering manoeuvre was given to the becomes larger than the nominal value. This is due to the
sprung mass. When a step steer is given to a vehicle, there fact that the non-linear STC recognizes the load change as
D00897 # IMechE 1998 Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 212 Part D
88 C KIM AND P I RO
a static mass change to a greater degree than that of the suspension deflection larger than the nominal value (Fig.
equivalent mass change. The final estimated sprung mass 16). This is not surprising in many adaptive schemes, in
was 502 kg instead of 312 kg ( 1:3 3 240 kg) which which asymptotic tracking does not necessarily require
makes the control force larger than required and the asymptotic parameter convergence (16).
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 212 Part D D00897 # IMechE 1998
A SLIDING MODE CONTROLLER 89
Fig. 13 Frequency repsonse of control force input (linear model, non-linear model case)
Fig. 14 The effect of switching gain on the robustness of the non-linear SM system sprung mass acceleration
(m=s2 ), suspension and tyre deflection (m)
Fig. 15 The comparison between SM and non-linear STC active suspension acceleration of sprung mass (m=s2 )
and deflections of suspension and tyre (m)
Fig. 16 The change of sprung mass displacement (m) and control force (N) when the load to the sprung mass
changes
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 212 Part D D00897 # IMechE 1998
A SLIDING MODE CONTROLLER 91
simplifies the design process and guarantees the system 15 Young, K. D. Controller design for a manipulator using theory
stability. of variable structure systems. IEEE Trans. Systems, Man, and
It was shown that both the ride quality and handling Cybernetics, February 1978, SMC-8 (2).
performance are improved using the SM active suspension 16 Slotine, J. J. E. and Li, W. Applied Nonlinear Control, 1991
(Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey).
system in the presence of non-linearities of the suspension
17 Slotine, J. J. E. Sliding controller design for nonlinear
system and=or uncertainties of suspension parameters. The systems. Int. J. Control, 1984, 40 (2), 421434.
control scheme was compared with an existing adaptive 18 Chin, Y., Lin, W. C., Sidlosky, D. M. and Rule, D. S. Sliding-
control scheme (STC scheme) which was developed to deal mode ABS wheel-slip control. Proceedings of 1992 ACC,
with non-linearities of the suspension system. Simulation 1992, pp. 15.
results show that both controllers can improve the ride 19 Alleyne, A. and Hedrick, J. K. Nonlinear adaptive control of
quality. However, only the SM active suspension system active suspensions. IEEE Trans. Control Systems Technol.,
showed robust tracking performances even when suspen- 1995, 3 (1), 94101.
sion parameters changed suddenly (uncertainties of para- 20 Kim, C. A comparative study of active suspension systems
meters). using adaptive self-tuning control and sliding mode control
schemes. Master thesis, Mechanical and Aerospace Engineer-
ing Department, North Carolina State University, 1996.
REFERENCES
K T [K 0 K 1 K 2 K 3 ] Let
C T [C1 C2 ] ^
y (34)
fxg [1 x x 2 x 3 ]T where
and [1 x x 2 x 3 x_ x_ 2 u] (35a)
f x_ g [ x_ x_ 2 ]T ^ 1 [ (k 0 ms g)
k1 k2 k3 c1 c2 1]T
ms
Substituting this control input to the system equation (35b)
(25) and equating with the desired reference system equa-
tion (27), then the following is obtained:
y xs (35c)
K0 k 0 (32a)
Then the output y can be expressed with the system state
ms vector, , and unknown parameter vector, . ^ Notice that
K1 ks k1 (32b)
msm both y and can be measurable from the output measure-
^
ment and control input. Now, from a linear equation (34),
K2 k 2 (32c) can be obtained using the next set of equations:
K3 k 3 (32d) (k 1) [(xs xu )( x_ s x_ u )u](k 1) (36a)
ms y(k 1) xs (k 1) (36b)
C1 cs c1 (32e)
msm
e(k 1) [ y(k 1) ^
(k 1)(k)] (36c)
C 2 c2 (32f )
^ 1) (k)
(k ^ K(k)e(k 1) (36d)
ms
L csh (32g)
msm ^
(k) [ p1 (k) . . . p7 (k)]T (36e)
ms g (32h) P(k 1) [I K(k)(k 1)]P(k) (36f )
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 212 Part D D00897 # IMechE 1998