173-179The present paper aims at developing an active suspension for
a passenger car by designing a controller using linear quadratic optimal
control theory. In this work, two different control approaches are proposed,
viz., conventional method (CM) and acceleration dependent method (ADM). A
quarter car model with 3 degrees-of-freedom has been considered for the
analysis. The performance of the active suspension system with two control
approaches has been compared with that of passive one. It is concluded that
active suspension system has a better potential to improve both the ride
comfort and road holding, since the RMS (Root Mean Square) passenger
acceleration has been reduced by 54.23% for active CM system and by 93.88% for
active ADM system compared to passive one, and suspension travel has also
reduced to about 37.5%