A novel active suspension design technique - Simulation and experimental results

A novel approach for the design of active suspension systems is proposed in this paper. By defining virtual input signals, the dynamics of a quarter-car suspension system is transformed and becomes independent of vehicle parameters. Standard linear quadratic (LQ) optimization technique is applied to design the virtual inputs. The virtual input signal is used to construct the desired trajectory of a subloop control system. The subloop control problem is designed using classical SISO control design techniques plus an ad hoc preview enhancement. It was shown that this virtual input based (VIE) approach results in a simple outer loop design because it is independent of system parameters. Simulation as well as experimental results are reported.