Modelling and Controlling of Quarter Car Active Suspension System

Using PID controller

Abstract

Active suspension systems are used to control vehicles body vibration due to roughness of road
by continuously applying the actuating force according to the nature of the road disturbance.

In recent years, the designing of active suspension systems are being high potential research
areas. A lot of researches have been doing to get more efficient and better performance of active
suspension by having suitable control strategy. Many automobile vehicle companies updates
their products soon in order to increase the performance of ride comfort and road handling to
satisfy their customers.

In this research, due to its robustness property, Proportional, Integral and Derivative (PID)
controller is designed based on quarter car model using linear dc motor actuator to improve the
performance of the system. The actuator provides the desired control force to the system and it
can be controlled based on the inputs from chassis acceleration, velocity or displacement sensor
that measures the vertical acceleration, velocity or displacement. The performance of the
suspension system is determined by passenger comfort and it can be measured by car body
displacement or passenger seat displacement. It will be analyzed based on mathematical model
with the help of MATLAB/SIMULINK environment and other analytical techniques.
 Vehicle (Car) Body
Sensor

Passive Elements Actuator PID Controller

(spring and damper)

Wheel and Tyre

Road profile
(disturbance)

Figure 1 Model of the active suspension system