Proceedings of The 7th International ASME/IEEE Conference on Mechatronics & Embedded Systems and Applications MESA 2011 August 28-31, 2011, Washington, DC, USA DETC2011-47468 MULTI-TERRAIN VEHICLE ACTIVE SUSPENSION CONTROL MODELING AND DESIGN Jawad Masood PMARLab Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Genova Genova, Genova 16145 Italy Email: j masood@dimec.unige.it Matteo Zoppi ∗ Rezia Molfino Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Genova Genova, Genova, 16145 Italy zoppi@dimec.unige.it ABSTRACT This paper presents the progress of work toward state of art design and development of active suspension low level impedance control for high speed (> 80km/h) multi-terrain vehi- cles. We have used a quarter car suspension model for mechan- ical system modeling. The system utilizes hydraulic actuation to change the impedance at joints. The control strategy is designed such that the excitation force or disturbance from the environ- ment is balanced such that the system follows ideal impedance parameters. Control synthesis is performed on the position con- trol scheme for the analysis of sensitivity, robustness and perfor- mance. In the end different control tuning techniques are used to improve the impedance control performance under environmen- tal conditions. NOMENCLATURE f a Hydraulic actuation force M 1 Sprung mass M 2 Unsprung mass x 1 Displacement of sprung mass x 2 Displacement of unsprung mass x 3 Displacement of tire due to road disturbances k 1 Sprung stiffness k 2 Unsprung stiffness ∗ Address all correspondence to this author. b 1 Sprung damping b 2 Unsprung damping x v Displacement of spool valve τ v Time constant u Control input to servo valve A p Actuator piston area P l Pressure across lines V t Volume of actuator β e Effective bulk modulus Q Hydraulic load force C tp Total leakage coefficient C d Discharge coefficient w Area gradient ρ Density of oil P s Supply pressure G f Impedance transfer function C Compensator ν Nonlinear component INTRODUCTION This paper presents the progress of work towards state of art design and development of active suspension low level impedance control for high speed (> 80km/h) multi-terrain ve- hicles. Active suspension systems are preferred over passive sus- pensions because they provide better trade off between handling 1 Copyright c ⃝ 2011 by ASME