Hierarchical Control of Ride Height System for Electronically Controlled Air Suspension Based on Variable Structure and Fuzzy Control Theory

The current research of air suspension mainly focuses on the characteristics and design of the air spring. In fact, electronically controlled air suspension （ECAS） has excellent performance in flexible height adjustment during different driving conditions. However, the nonlinearity of the ride height adjusting system and the uneven distribution of payload affect the control accuracy of ride height and the body attitude. Firstly, the three-point measurement system of three height sensors is used to establish the mathematical model of the ride height adjusting system. The decentralized control of ride height and the centralized control of body attitude are presented to design the ride height control system for ECAS. The exact feedback linearization method is adopted for the nonlinear mathematical model of the ride height system. Secondly, according to the hierarchical control theory, the variable structure control （VSC） technique is used to design a controller that is able to adjust the ride height for the quarter-vehicle anywhere, and each quarter-vehicle height control system is independent. Meanwhile, the three-point height signals obtained by three height sensors are tracked to calculate the body pitch and roll attitude over time, and then by calculating the deviation of pitch and roll and its rates, the height control correction is reassigned based on the fuzzy algorithm. Finally, to verify the effectiveness and performance of the proposed combined control strategy, a validating test of ride height control system with and without road disturbance is carried out. Testing results show that the height adjusting time of both lifting and lowering is over 5 s, and the pitch angle and the roll angle of body attitude are less than 0.15°. This research proposes a hierarchical control method that can guarantee the attitude stability, as well as satisfy the ride height tracking system.

Fuzzy Sliding Mode Control for the Vehicle Height and Leveling Adjustment System of an Electronic Air Suspension

The accurate control for the vehicle height and leveling adjustment system of an electronic air suspension(EAS) still is a challenging problem that has not been effectively solved in prior researches. This paper proposes a new adaptive controller to control the vehicle height and to adjust the roll and pitch angles of the vehicle body(leveling control) during the vehicle height adjustment procedures by an EAS system. A nonlinear mechanism model of the full?car vehicle height adjustment system is established to reflect the system dynamic behaviors and to derive the system optimal control law. To deal with the nonlinear characters in the vehicle height and leveling adjustment processes, the nonlinear system model is globally linearized through the state feedback method. On this basis, a fuzzy sliding mode controller(FSMC) is designed to improve the control accuracy of the vehicle height adjustment and to reduce the peak values of the roll and pitch angles of the vehicle body. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed control method more accurately, the full?car EAS system model programmed using AMESim is also given. Then, the co?simulation study of the FSMC performance can be conducted. Finally, actual vehicle tests are performed with a city bus, and the test results illustrate that the vehicle height adjustment performance is effectively guaranteed by the FSMC, and the peak values of the roll and pitch angles of the vehicle body during the vehicle height adjustment procedures are also reduced significantly. This research proposes an effective control methodology for the vehicle height and leveling adjustment system of an EAS, which provides a favorable control performance for the system.

A Hybrid Approach to Modeling and Control of Vehicle Height for Electronically Controlled Air Suspension

The control problems associated with vehicle height adjustment of electronically controlled air suspension （ECAS） still pose theoretical challenges for researchers, which manifest themselves in the publications on this subject over the last years. This paper deals with modeling and control of a vehicle height adjustment system for ECAS, which is an example of a hybrid dynamical system due to the coexistence and coupling of continuous variables and discrete events. A mixed logical dynamical （MLD） modeling approach is chosen for capturing enough details of the vehicle height adjustment process. The hybrid dynamic model is constructed on the basis of some assumptions and piecewise linear approximation for components nonlinearities. Then, the on-off statuses of solenoid valves and the piecewise approximation process are described by propositional logic, and the hybrid system is transformed into the set of linear mixed-integer equalities and inequalities, denoted as MLD model, automatically by HYSDEL. Using this model, a hybrid model predictive controller （HMPC） is tuned based on online mixed-integer quadratic optimization （MIQP）. Two different scenarios are considered in the simulation, whose results verify the height adjustment effectiveness of the proposed approach. Explicit solutions of the controller are computed to control the vehicle height adjustment system in realtime using an offline multi-parametric programming technology （MPT）, thus convert the controller into an equivalent explicit piecewise affine form. Finally, bench experiments for vehicle height lifting, holding and lowering procedures are conducted, which demonstrate that the HMPC can adjust the vehicle height by controlling the on-off statuses of solenoid valves directly. This research proposes a new modeling and control method for vehicle height adjustment of ECAS, which leads to a closed-loop system with favorable dynamical properties.

Vehicle height control of electronic air suspension system based on mixed logical dynamical modelling

Due to the coexistence and coupling of continuous variables and discrete events, the vehicle height adjustment process of electronic air suspension system can be regarded as a typical hybrid system. Therefore, the hybrid system theory was applied to design a novel vehicle height control strategy in this paper. A nonlinear mechanism model of the vehicle height adjustment system was established based on vehicle system dynamics and thermodynamic theory for variable-mass gas charge/discharge system. In order to model both the continuous/discrete dynamics of vehicle height adjustment process and the on-off statuses switching of solenoid valves, the framework of mixed logical dynamical(MLD) modelling was used. On the basis of the vehicle height adjustment control strategy, the MLD model of the adjustment process was built by introducing auxiliary logical variables and auxiliary continuous variables. Then, the co-simulation of the nonlinear mechanism model and the MLD model was conducted based on the compiling of HYSDEL. The simulation and experimental results show that the proposed control strategy can not only adjust the vehicle height effectively, but also achieve the on-off statuses direct control of solenoid valves.

Stiffness-damping matching method of an ECAS system based on LQG control

A novel method of matching stiffness and continuous variable damping of an ECAS(electronically controlled air suspension) based on LQG(linear quadratic Gaussian) control was proposed to simultaneously improve the road-friendliness and ride comfort of a two-axle school bus.Taking account of the suspension nonlinearities and target-height-dependent variation in suspension characteristics,a stiffness model of the ECAS mounted on the drive axle of the bus was developed based on thermodynamics and the key parameters were obtained through field tests.By determining the proper range of the target height for the ECAS of the fully-loaded bus based on the design requirements of vehicle body bounce frequency,the control algorithm of the target suspension height(i.e.,stiffness) was derived according to driving speed and road roughness.Taking account of the nonlinearities of a continuous variable semi-active damper,the damping force was obtained through the subtraction of the air spring force from the optimum integrated suspension force,which was calculated based on LQG control.Finally,a GA(genetic algorithm)-based matching method between stepped variable damping and stiffness was employed as a benchmark to evaluate the effectiveness of the LQG-based matching method.Simulation results indicate that compared with the GA-based matching method,both dynamic tire force and vehicle body vertical acceleration responses are markedly reduced around the vehicle body bounce frequency employing the LQG-based matching method,with peak values of the dynamic tire force PSD(power spectral density) decreased by 73.6%,60.8% and 71.9% in the three cases,and corresponding reduction are 71.3%,59.4% and 68.2% for the vehicle body vertical acceleration.A strong robustness to variation of driving speed and road roughness is also observed for the LQG-based matching method.

Vehicle height and leveling control of electronically controlled air suspension using mixed logical dynamical approach

Vehicle height and leveling control of electronically controlled air suspension(ECAS) still poses theoretical challenges for researchers that have not been adequately addressed in prior research. This paper investigates the design and verification of a new controller to adjust the vehicle height and to regulate the roll and pitch angles of the vehicle body(leveling control) during the height adjustment procedures. A nonlinear mechanism model of the vehicle height adjustment system is formulated to describe the dynamic behaviors of the system. By using mixed logical dynamical(MLD) approach, a novel control strategy is proposed to adjust the vehicle height by controlling the on-off statuses of the solenoid valves directly. On this basis, a correction algorithm is also designed to regulate the durations of the on-off statuses of the solenoid valves based on pulse width modulated(PWM) technology, thus the effective leveling control of the vehicle body can be guaranteed. Finally, simulations and vehicle tests results are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed control methodology.