Modeling and Simulation of PID
Controller-Based Active Suspension System for
a Quarter Car Model
Nguyen Van Trang, Duong Nguyen Hac Lan, and Nguyen Ngoc Chau
 The passive suspension system limits the motion
Abstract—The most common automobile
suspension systems use passive components only
by utilizing spring and damping coefficient with
fixed rates. The active suspension system has
many advantages to make the vehicle operate safer
and quieter than passive suspension system. The
objectives of this study are to develop a linear
mathematical model of active and passive
suspensions systems for quarter car model subject
to excitation from different road profile using PID
controller. The simulation results of the study are
performed to compare between active and passive
suspension systems. The study has been able to
determine the parameter of PID controllers of
active suspension in many different road surfaces
and speeds to improve the driving comfort. The
main outcomes of this research can be applied on
the real active suspension system.
Index Terms— Active suspension, Passive suspension,
Quarter car model, PID controller.
1 INTRODUCTION
S USPENSION system is the most significant part
which heavily affects the vehicle handling
performance and ride quality. Because of its
structures limit, the passive suspension system can
hardly improve the two properties at the same time.
Since the advent of active suspension system, it has
become the research hot spot. The design of the
control strategy is the core of active suspension
system technology [1-5].
Vehicle suspensions can be classified into three
basic categories: passive, semi-active, and active
suspension systems, which depends on the operation
mode to enhance the driving comfort, to minimize the
road damage, and to provide good drive handing
capability.
This work was supported in part by the Faculty of Vehicle and
Energy Engineering, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology
and Education.
Nguyen Van Trang is with the Ho Chi Minh City University of
Technology and Education, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (e-mail:
trangnv@ hcmute.edu.vn).
of the body and wheel by limiting their relative
velocities to a rate that gives the required ride quality.
This is achieved by using some type of damping
element placed between the body and the wheels of
the vehicle. That have non-controlled springs and
shock observing dampers with fixed parameters and
no online feedback action is used [2]. Passive
suspension design performance is used for specific
operating conditions. On contrary, active suspensions
can have a wide range of operation condition and can
adapt to the system variations based on online
changes of the actuating force. Therefore, active
suspensions have been extensively studied since
1960s and various approaches have been proposed
Harvat et al. (1997). However active suspensions
normally require large power supply, which is the
main drawback that prevents this technique from
being used extensively in practice. From1970s, semi-
active suspensions have received much attention
since they can achieve desirable performance than
passive suspensions and consume much less power
than active suspensions. Especially some controllable
dampers are available in practice that is
electrorhelogical (ER) dampers and magneto-
rheological (MR) dampers. The exising of semi-
active suspensions are more practical than ever in
engineering realization [2-6].
A PID (Proportional Integral Derivative)
controller is a control loop mechanism employing
feedback that is widely used in industrial control
systems. In this paper, the PID controller is used to
controll the actuator force of active suspension
system and the modelling and simulation is carried in
simulink environment. In this study, the Graphical
User Interface (GUI) is conducted to determine the
parameter of PID controller of active suspension
system. Furthermore, the manual tuning solutions of
PID controller has been designed to control reactive
force in a specific automotive active suspension
system.
Duong Nguyen Hac Lan is now with the Cao Thang Vocational
College, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (e-mail:
haclan1993@gmail.com)
Nguyen Ngoc Chau was with the Engineer at Truong Hai Auto
Group. He is now with Bac Lieu Vocational College, Vietnam (e-
mail: chaunguyenoto@gmail.com).
 2 MODELLING AND MATHEMATICAL
MODELLING OF ACTICE SUSPENSION
SYSTEM
The dynamic model for linear quarter car
suspensions systems have been achieved as in Fig 1.
From the quarter car model, the method can be
developed in to full car model. Fig. 1 shows a basic
of a quarter car model, where the spring constant of
the suspension system is ks, bs is the damping
coefficient. Fa is the active force actuator . The active
force Fa can be set to zero in a passive suspension.
The sprung mass ms represents the quarter car
equivalent of the vehicle body mass. The unsprung
mass mu represents the equivalent mass due to the
axle and tire. The vertical stiffness of the tire is
represented by the spring kt . The variables zs, zu and
zr represent the vertical displacements from static
equilibrium of the sprung mass, unsprung mass and Fig. 1. Quarter-car active automotive suspension [2]
the road respectively [3, 14-18]. Applying Newton's second law in active suspension
When there is a force exrting from the road system, The equations of motion are written as:
surface on unsprung mass through the stiffness of the  ms .Zs   ks .( Z s  Zu )  bs .(Z s  Z u )  F (t ) (1)
tire spring in the upward direction. Through the  
 mu .Zu  ks .(Z s  Zu )  bs .( Zs  Z u )  kt .(Zu  Z r )  F (t )
stiffness spring and damping coefficient of the
  1
suspension acting on spung mass make this mass  Z s  m  bs . Z s  bs .Z u  k s .Z s  k s .Z u  F (t ) (2)
 
 s
move up. However, when the actuator force is 
applied, this actuator force will act a reverse force  Z  1 b .Z  b .Z  k .Z  k .Z  k .Z  k .Z  F (t )
 u mu s s s u t u t r s s s u

helps the sprung mass limit movement. The result

makes sprung mass fluctuate very little. From the equations of motion (2) we simulation
TABLE I actice suspension in the Matlab/Simulink with blocks
PARAMETER VALUES OF SUSPENSION SYSTEM fuction is shown in Fig 2.
Vehicle Model Parameters Values Unit

ms 250 kg
mu 50 kg
ks 18,600 N/m
kt 196,000 N/m
bs 1,000 Ns/m
V 40 km/h

Where V - speed of vehicle

In Table 1 show parameter values of suspension
system for quarter car model, the parameter of type of
road input- degree of roughness with road class C,
and speed of vehicle is 40 km/h. The quarter-car
linear dynamic model is constructed based on the
following assumptions [19]
1. Longitudinal effect of road profile was ignored.
2. There is no slip between the tires and road
surface, and influence of ground longitudinal
force on cornering characteristics of the tires
was not considered.
3. The effect of air force was ignored.
4. The influence of bearing-free gap and lubricant
membrane was ignored
Fig. 2. Simulink Model of Active Suspension
system
The input signal of PID controller is velocity of
sprung mass. The error is result of subtraction of
velocity of sprung mass and setpoint (0). When the
error appear the PID controller will control the
actuator force (output signal) effect on two mass and
make the error to setpoint is 0.
3 CONTROL ALGORITHM DESIGN OF ACTIVE
SUSPENSION SYSTEM.
The control algorithm of quarter-car dynamics
model is designed based on the following
requirement:
1. Maximum Suspension travelled not over 0.1m
for this work [4, 13].
2. Car body acceleration become minimum.
The Fig. 3 shows control algorithm design of active
suspension system is a general algorithm to find
parameters of PID controller with manual way by TABLE 2
loop programs. Graphical user interface (GUI) is a APPROXIMATE INDICATIONS OF LIKELY REACTION TO
VARIOUS MAGNITUDES OF OVERALL IN PUBLIC
interface that Authors build to user find parameters of TRANSPORT[5]
PID controller of active suspension.
Values Feature
≤ 0.315 m/s2 Not uncomfortable
START 0.315 – 0.63 m/s2 A little uncomfortable
0.5 - 1 m/s2 Fairly uncomfortable
Call GUI 0.8 – 1.6 m/s2 Uncomfortable
1.25 – 2.5 m/s2 Very uncomfortable
≥ 2 m / s2 Extremely uncomfortable
Set parameters The input road profile is selected in Mechanical
for simulation Vibration - Road surface profiles - Reporting of
measured data ISO 8608:1995 [6-9]. The input road
profile is simulated road class C and speed vehicle is
40 km/h and as shown below in Fig. 4.
Yes
Kp=ghp
&Ki=ghi
&Kd=gh

No

Call GUI for

Simulation Save Kp, Ki,
Kd and
others
Collect parameter
parameter

Fig. 4. Input Road Profile

No END User set up input parameter of suspention, road
Correct class and speed vehicle into GUI to determine
parameter? parameters of PID controller with suitable condition
as shows in Fig. 5.
Yes

Save parameters
Kp, Ki, Kd

Kp = Kp + 100
Ki = Ki + 100
Kd = Kd + 100
Fig. 3. Control Algorithm Design of Active
suspension system
Fig. 5. GUI for determining parameters of active
4 RESULT AND DISCUSSION suspension system
After setting up input paramers into the GUI it
Drive quality in general can be quantified by the shown parameters of PID controller as shown below
vertical acceleration of the passenger locations. The in Table 3
presence of a well-designed suspension provides TABLE 3
isolation by reducing the vibratory forces transmitted PARAMERTERS OF PID CONTROLLER
from the axle to the vehicle body. n the case of the Paramerter Value
quarter car suspension, sprung mass acceleration zs Kp 5,870
can be used to quantify ride quality [3]. International Ki 100
Standard. Mechanical vibration and shock- Kd 1,300
Evaluation of human exposure to whole-body With parameters PID Controller controll the
vibration (ISO 2631-1)[5] is choosed is a standard to active force actuator Fa support active suspension
assess suspention system is shown in Table 2. work.
 Fig. 8. Actuator control force of active suspension
system.
Fig. 6. Car body displacement

The red Dashed line is active and the black Dash-

dot line is pasive suspension system.
With the same input parameter of passive and
active suspension system but have the difference
between passive and active suspension system can be
seen from Fig. 6. the car body displacement of active
suspension vibration less than passive.

Fig. 9. Passive vs. Active Suspension Travel

Fig. 7. Passive vs. Active sprung mass vertical

acceleration
Fig. 7. shows the sprung mass vertical
acceleration of active suspension less than passive
suspension. Following the ISO 2631-1 if sprung mass
vertical acceleration less than 0.315 m/s2 than
passengers in veicle are not uncomfortable, 0.315 to
0.63 m/s2 - a little uncomfortable [5, 10-13].
For passive suspension, this values greater 0.63
m/s2 (0.78) make the passengers are rairly
Fig.10. Passive vs. Active Wheel Travel
uncomfortable. At active suspension system with PID
Suspension travel and whell travel of both passive
controller have value less than 0.315 m/s2 (0.28) make
and active suspention system as shown in Fig. 9 and
the passengers are not uncomfortable. The sprung
10. In active suspension the spring must work more
mass displacement has been reduced by 65% with the
active suspention. to enhance ride quality. But whell travel less than
With parameters PID Controller controll the limit of wheel it mean that wheel until contact with
road surface profile.
active force actuator Fa support active suspension
With GUI that authors build can find parameters
work. The operation of actuator Fa as shown in Fig. 8
maximum force at 1,100 (N) with this force not large of PID controller at different speed and different road
to active suspension system work. class as shown below in Table 4 and 5. In reduction
column is sprung mass vertical acceleration active
subtract passive and per sprung mass vertical
acceleration passive.
 TABLE 4
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[15] Rosmazi Rosli, Musa Mailah, Gigih Priyandoko. mechanical vibration.
Active Suspension System for Passenger Vehicle E-mail: trangnv@hcmute.edu.vn
using Active Force Control with Iterative Learning Duong Nguyen Hac Lan
Algorithm. WSEAS Transactions on Systems and received his B.E. in
Control, Vol. 9, pp. 121-129, 2014. Automotive Engineering
[16] Jiangbo Wang, and Baomin Qiang. Road Technology from Ho Chi
simulation for four-wheel vehicle whole input power Minh City University of
spectral density. AIP Conference Proceedings 1839, Technology and Education
pp. (020147-1) – (020147-6), 2017. in 2016. Since 2016, He has
[17] Qi Zhou. Research and Simulation on New been a Technical instructor
Active Suspension Control System, Lehigh at Cao Thang Vocational
University, 2013. College. His research interests focus on suspension
[18] Sayel M. Fayyad. Constructing Control System research interests focus on suspension system,
for Active Suspension System. Constructing Control mecahnical vibration.
System for Active Suspension System, Vol. 5, pp. E-mail: haclan1993@gmail.com
189-200, 2012.
[19] Tan, D.; Lu, C. The influence of the magnetic Nguyen Ngoc Chau
force generated by the in-wheel motor on the received his B.E. in
vertical and lateral coupling dynamics of electric Automotive Technology
vehicles. IEEE Trans. Veh. Technol. 2016, 65, from Industrial University
4655–4668. of Ho Chi Minh City in
2011. Since 2012, He has
been an Engineer at Truong
Hai Auto Group. He is
currently an Instrutor of Bac
Lieu Vocational College. His research interests focus
on vibration of suspension system.
E-mail: chaunguyenoto@gmail.com