Optimal Vibration Control for Half-Car Suspension on In-Vehicle Networks in Delta Domain

The paper explores the optimal vibration control design problem for a half-car suspension working on in-vehicle networks in delta domain. First, the original suspension system with ECU-actuator delay and sensor-ECU delay is modeled. By using delta operators, the original system is transformed into an associated sampled-data system with time delays in delta domain. After model transformation, the sampled-data system equation is reduced to one without actuator delays and convenient to calculate the states with nonintegral time delay. Therefore, the sampled-data optimal vibration control law can be easily obtained deriving from a Riccati equation and a Stein equation of delta domain. The feedforward control term and the control memory terms designed in the control law ensure the compensation for the effects produced by disturbance and actuator delay, respectively. Moreover, an observer is constructed to implement the physical realizability of the feedforward term and solve the immeasurability problem of some state variables. A half-car suspension model with delays is applied to simulate the responses through the designed controller. Simulation results illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed controller and the simplicity of the designing approach

Active suspension control of electric vehicle with in-wheel motors

In-wheel motor (IWM) technology has attracted increasing research interests in recent years due to the numerous advantages it offers. However, the direct attachment of IWMs to the wheels can result in an increase in the vehicle unsprung mass and a significant drop in the suspension ride comfort performance and road holding stability. Other issues such as motor bearing wear motor vibration, air-gap eccentricity and residual unbalanced radial force can adversely influence the motor vibration, passenger comfort and vehicle rollover stability. Active suspension and optimized passive suspension are possible methods deployed to improve the ride comfort and safety of electric vehicles equipped with inwheel motor. The trade-off between ride comfort and handling stability is a major challenge in active suspension design. This thesis investigates the development of novel active suspension systems for successful implementation of IWM technology in electric cars. Towards such aim, several active suspension methods based on robust H∞ control methods are developed to achieve enhanced suspension performance by overcoming the conflicting requirement between ride comfort, suspension deflection and road holding. A novel fault-tolerant H∞ controller based on friction compensation is in the presence of system parameter uncertainties, actuator faults, as well as actuator time delay and system friction is proposed. A friction observer-based Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy H∞ controller is developed for active suspension with sprung mass variation and system friction. This method is validated experimentally on a quarter car test rig. The experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed control methods in improving vehicle ride performance and road holding capability under different road profiles. Quarter car suspension model with suspended shaft-less direct-drive motors has the potential to improve the road holding capability and ride performance. Based on the quarter car suspension with dynamic vibration absorber (DVA) model, a multi-objective parameter optimization for active suspension of IWM mounted electric vehicle based on genetic algorithm (GA) is proposed to suppress the sprung mass vibration, motor vibration, motor bearing wear as well as improving ride comfort, suspension deflection and road holding stability. Then a fault-tolerant fuzzy H∞ control design approach for active suspension of IWM driven electric vehicles in the presence of sprung mass variation, actuator faults and control input constraints is proposed. The T-S fuzzy suspension model is used to cope with the possible sprung mass variation. The output feedback control problem for active suspension system of IWM driven electric vehicles with actuator faults and time delay is further investigated. The suspended motor parameters and vehicle suspension parameters are optimized based on the particle swarm optimization. A robust output feedback H∞ controller is designed to guarantee the system’s asymptotic stability and simultaneously satisfying the performance constraints. The proposed output feedback controller reveals much better performance than previous work when different actuator thrust losses and time delay occurs. The road surface roughness is coupled with in-wheel switched reluctance motor air-gap eccentricity and the unbalanced residual vertical force. Coupling effects between road excitation and in wheel switched reluctance motor (SRM) on electric vehicle ride comfort are also analysed in this thesis. A hybrid control method including output feedback controller and SRM controller are designed to suppress SRM vibration and to prolong the SRM lifespan, while at the same time improving vehicle ride comfort. Then a state feedback H∞ controller combined with SRM controller is designed for in-wheel SRM driven electric vehicle with DVA structure to enhance vehicle and SRM performance. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of DVA structure based active suspension system with proposed control method its ability to significantly improve the road holding capability and ride performance, as well as motor performance

Controller Design for Active Suspension System of 1⁄4 Car with Unknown Mass and Time-Delay

—The purpose of this paper is to present a modeling and control of a quarter-car active suspension system with unknown mass, unknown time-delay and road disturbance. The objective of designing the controller is to derive a control law to achieve stability of the system and convergence that can considerably improve ride comfort and road disturbance handling. This is accomplished by using Routh-Hurwitz criterion based on defined parameters. Mathematical proof is given to show the ability of the designed controller to ensure the target of design, implementation with the active suspension system and enhancement dispersion oscillation of the system despite these problems. Simulations were also performed to control quarter car suspension, where the results obtained from these simulations verify the validity of the proposed design

Controller design for active suspension system of ¼ car with unknown mass and time-delay

—The purpose of this paper is to present a modeling and control of a quarter-car active suspension system with unknown mass, unknown time-delay and road disturbance. The objective of designing the controller is to derive a control law to achieve stability of the system and convergence that can considerably improve ride comfort and road disturbance handling. This is accomplished by using Routh-Hurwitz criterion based on defined parameters. Mathematical proof is given to show the ability of the designed controller to ensure the target of design, implementation with the active suspension system and enhancement dispersion oscillation of the system despite these problems. Simulations were also performed to control quarter car suspension, where the results obtained from these simulations verify the validity of the proposed design

Research on Advanced Control Strategies for Vehicle Active Seat Suspension Systems

Vehicle seat suspensions play a very important role in vibration reduction for vehicle drivers, especially for some heavy vehicles. Compared with small vehicles, these heavy vehicle drivers suffer much more from vibrations, which influence driving comfort and may cause health problems, so seat suspensions are necessary for those heavy vehicle drivers to reduce vibrations and improve driving comfort. Advanced control systems and control strategies are investigated for vehicle seat suspensions in this project. Firstly, for an active single-degree of freedom (single-DOF) seat suspension, a singular system-based approach for active vibration control of vehicle seat suspensions is proposed, where the drivers’ acceleration is augmented into the conventional seat suspension model together with seat suspension deflection and relative velocity as system states to make the suspen- sion model as a singular system. Then, an event-triggered H∞ controller is designed for an active seat suspension, where both the continuous and discrete-time event-triggered schemes are considered, respectively. The proposed control method can reduce the work- load of data transmission of the seat suspension system and work as a filter to remove the effect of noise, so it can decrease the precision requirement of the actuator, which can help to reduce the cost of the seat suspension. For complicated seat suspension systems, a singular active seat suspension system with a human body model is also established and an output-feedback event-triggered H∞ controller is designed. The accelerations of each part are considered as part of the system states, which makes the system a singular sys- tem. The seat suspension deflection, relative velocity, the accelerations of the seat frame, body torso, and head are defined as the system outputs. At last, to deal with whole-body vibration, a control system and a robust H∞ control strategy are designed for a 2-DOF seat suspension system. Two H∞ controllers are designed to reduce vertical and rotational vibrations simultaneously. All the proposed seat suspension systems and control methods are verified by simulations and some are also tested by experiments. These simulation and experimental results show their effectiveness and advantages of the proposed methods to improve the driving comfort and some can reduce the workload of data transmission

Streamlined design and self reliant hardware for active control of precision space structures

Precision space structures may require active vibration control to satisfy critical performance requirements relating to line-of-sight pointing accuracy and the maintenance of precise, internal alignments. In order for vibration control concepts to become operational, it is necessary that their benefits be practically demonstrated in large scale ground-based experiments. A unique opportunity to carry out such demonstrations on a wide variety of experimental testbeds was provided by the NASA Control-Structure Integration (CSI) Guest Investigator (GI) Program. This report surveys the experimental results achieved by the Harris Corporation GI team on both Phases 1 and 2 of the program and provides a detailed description of Phase 2 activities. The Phase 1 results illustrated the effectiveness of active vibration control for space structures and demonstrated a systematic methodology for control design, implementation test. In Phase 2, this methodology was significantly streamlined to yield an on-site, single session design/test capability. Moreover, the Phase 2 research on adaptive neural control techniques made significant progress toward fully automated, self-reliant space structure control systems. As a further thrust toward productized, self-contained vibration control systems, the Harris Phase II activity concluded with experimental demonstration of new vibration isolation hardware suitable for a wide range of space-flight and ground-based commercial applications.The CSI GI Program Phase 1 activity was conducted under contract NASA1-18872, and the Phase 2 activity was conducted under NASA1-19372

LMI-based H∞ controller of vehicle roll stability control systems with input and output delays

This article belongs to the Section Physical Sensors.Many of the current research works are focused on the development of different control systems for commercial vehicles in order to reduce the incidence of risky driving situations, while also improving stability and comfort. Some works are focused on developing low-cost embedded systems with enough accuracy, reliability, and processing time. Previous research works have analyzed the integration of low-cost sensors in vehicles. These works demonstrated the feasibility of using these systems, although they indicate that this type of low-cost kit could present relevant delays and noise that must be compensated to improve the performance of the device. For this purpose, it is necessary design controllers for systems with input and output delays. The novelty of this work is the development of an LMI-Based H∞ output-feedback controller that takes into account the effect of delays in the network, both on the sensor side and the actuator side, on RSC (Roll Stability Control) systems. The controller is based on an active suspension with input and output delays, where the anti-roll moment is used as a control input and the roll rate as measured data, both with delays. This controller was compared with a controller system with a no-delay consideration that was experiencing similar delays. The comparison was made through simulation tests with a validated vehicle on the TruckSim® software.This work was supported by the FEDER/Ministry of Science and Innovation-Agencia Estatal de Investigacion (AEI) of the Government of Spain through the project [RTI2018-095143-B-C21]

Active vibration control for a free piston stirling engine with linear alternator FPSE/LA

New regulations introduced by the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO) have brought further requirements for grid connected generators into action in 2013. The β-type Stirling engine (FPSE/LA) used for micro combined heat and power systems (MCHP) is a synchronous machine that is designed and tuned to operate at 50Hz ± 0.5Hz. This type of technology has to comply with the new regulations that imposes a wider operating envelop (47Hz-53Hz). This engine suffers from continuous self-induced vibrations caused by the reciprocating motion of a permanent magnet attached to its piston inside a linear alternator. Currently, the damping of the vibrations in the FPSA/LA is achieved by employing a passive tuned mass damper (TMD) tuned to damp vibrations at 50Hz. While passive devices provide a simple and a reliable way to tackle many vibration problems, there exists distinct performance limitations associated with the use of only passive devices. As for this particular application, the main limitation of the TMD in its passive form is its narrow bandwidth of operation that cannot cope with the new bandwidth. Consequently, this could expose the engine to physical damage and failure. Therefore modifications to the existing TMD have to be introduced. This research involved the design and development of an active tuned mass damper (ATMD) and the suitable control strategies using an electromagnetic actuator, namely a linear voice coil motor (VCM). Starting with a validated vibration model of the engine based on two degrees of freedom system (2-DOF), two control techniques, Feedforward/Zero-Placement control with relative/absolute position and Linear Quadratic (LQ) optimal control, were investigated with numerical simulation in the frequency and time domains. For the purpose of testing and implementation, a test rig featuring an electromagnetic shaker, a VCM, and a TMD besides an embedded system was assembled. An electromechanical model of the test rig was also developed and simulated with the integration of the control strategies. A set of experimental tests were carried out and the concept of active vibration control was successfully illustrated. In addition to that, an in depth investigation of the effect of time delays on the control methodology was conducted. The study resulted in the identification of a time delay margin where below, stability is guaranteed. Furthermore, a set of comprehensive equations of the power and actuator force requirements to perform active damping with a VCM based on any general 2-DOF system are obtained for both the feedforward and the LQ control strategies

Fuzzy-logic-based control, filtering, and fault detection for networked systems: A Survey

This paper is concerned with the overview of the recent progress in fuzzy-logic-based filtering, control, and fault detection problems. First, the network technologies are introduced, the networked control systems are categorized from the aspects of fieldbuses and industrial Ethernets, the necessity of utilizing the fuzzy logic is justified, and the network-induced phenomena are discussed. Then, the fuzzy logic control strategies are reviewed in great detail. Special attention is given to the thorough examination on the latest results for fuzzy PID control, fuzzy adaptive control, and fuzzy tracking control problems. Furthermore, recent advances on the fuzzy-logic-based filtering and fault detection problems are reviewed. Finally, conclusions are given and some possible future research directions are pointed out, for example, topics on two-dimensional networked systems, wireless networked control systems, Quality-of-Service (QoS) of networked systems, and fuzzy access control in open networked systems.This work was supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Grants 61329301, 61374039, 61473163, and 61374127, the Hujiang Foundation of China under Grants C14002 andD15009, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the UK, the Royal Society of the UK, and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany