Nonlinear Control of Semi-Active MacPherson Suspension System

This paper presents the control design and analysis of a non-linear model of a MacPherson suspension system equipped with a magnetorheological (MR) damper. The model suspension considered incorporates the kinematics of the suspension linkages. An output feedback controller is developed using an ℒ₂-gain analysis based on the concept of energy dissipation. The controller is effectively a smooth saturated PID. The performance of the closed-loop system is compared with a purely passive MacPherson suspension system and a semi-active damper, whose damping coefficient is tunned by a Skyhook-Acceleration Driven Damping (SH-ADD) method. Simulation results show that the developed controller outperforms the passive case at both the rattle space, tire hop frequencies and the SH-ADD at tire hop frequency while showing a close performance to the SH-ADD at the rattle space frequency. Time domain simulation results confirmed that the control strategy satisfies the dissipative constraint.