Semi-active Suspension Control using Modern Methodology: Comprehensive Comparison Study

TL;DR

This paper compares three semi-active suspension control methods—Acceleration Driven Damper, Power Driven Damper, and H_infinity Robust Control—demonstrating that H_infinity offers superior performance despite higher computational costs.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive comparison of modern semi-active suspension control strategies using MATLAB/Simulink, highlighting the advantages of H_infinity Robust Control.

Findings

H_infinity Robust Control outperforms other methods in transient response and disturbance rejection.

H_infinity control offers improved ride comfort and stability.

Computational complexity of H_infinity control is higher but justified by performance gains.

Abstract

Semi-active suspensions have drawn particular attention due to their superior performance over the other types of suspensions. One of their advantages is that their damping coefficient can be controlled without the need for any external source of power. In this study, three control approaches are implemented on a quarter-car model using MATLAB/Simulink. The investigated control methodologies are Acceleration Driven Damper, Power Driven Damper, and H_infinity Robust Control. The three controllers are known as comfort-oriented approaches. H_infinity Robust Control is an advanced method that guarantees transient performance and rejects external disturbances. It is shown that H_infinity with the proposed modification, has the best performance although its relatively high cost of computation could be potentially considered as a drawback.