Application of Practical Observer to Semi-Active Suspensions

This paper presents the development of gain-scheduled observers for semi-active suspensions. The states of the semi-active suspensions must be accurately obtained because the accuracy directly affects system performances such as ride comfort. Nonlinearity in the absorber of the semi-active suspensions is a difficult problem for estimating the accurate states using conventional linear observer theories. To solve this problem, we have designed a new gain-scheduled observer by introducing two improvements. The validity of this nonlinear observer was confirmed by simulations and experiments. The results indicate that the present observer can accurately estimate the suspension stroke velocity using the vertical acceleration sensor on the sprung mass. [S0022-0434(00)02302-9]