Int. J. Vehicle Noise and Vibration, Vol. 14, No. 1, 2018 1 Copyright © 2018 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd. A nonlinear quarter-car active suspension design based on feedback linearisation and H ∞ control Tamir Shaqarin* and Nabeel Alshabatat Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tafila Technical University, Tafila 66110, Jordan Email: tshagareen@ttu.edu.jo Email: nabeel@ttu.edu.jo *Corresponding author Abstract: The nonlinear behaviour of suspension elements is substantial when the vehicles experience large road disturbances. These nonlinearities lead to performance deterioration of active suspension systems, which in turn degrades ride comfort, road holding and road handling. Standard control trends on the active suspension count on linear models to benefit from the well established linear control theory, while neglecting the nonlinear dynamics of the suspension systems. In this study, the quarter-car model has a nonlinear suspension spring with a hysteretic nature. The presented design is based on the combination of feedback linearisation (FBL) and H ∞ controller. This approach is selected to take in consideration the nonlinear behaviour of the suspension system, while maintaining the opportunity to conduct the linear control theory. The main objective is maximising the ride comfort while keeping the suspension stroke, tyre dynamic load, and actuator force bounded. To assess the efficiency of the proposed design, simulations are performed on two types of road disturbances. The time and frequency domain simulations show the superiority of the proposed feedback controller in providing ride comfort in comparison with the passive suspension system. Moreover, the proposed design guarantees an agreement between the ride comfort and the other design constraints. Keywords: active suspension control; feedback linearisation; robust control; mixed sensitivity. Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Shaqarin, T. and Alshabatat, N. (2018) ‘A nonlinear quarter-car active suspension design based on feedback linearisation and H ∞ control’, Int. J. Vehicle Noise and Vibration, Vol. 14, No. 1, pp.1–15. Biographical notes: Tamir Shaqarin received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Lille 1, France. He is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tafila Technical University, Jordan. His research interests are related to nonlinear control, robust control, flow control and turbulence control. He has published research papers at international journals and conference proceedings. Nabeel Alshabatat received his PhD in Mechanical Engineering at the University of Western Michigan. He is an Associate Professor at the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Tafila Technical University, Jordan. His research interests are related to vibration control, structural dynamics and mechanical behaviour of materials. He has published research papers at international journals and conference proceedings.