A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PASSIVE AND ACTIVE SUSPENSION FOR AUTOMOBILE APPLICATIONS

• Main Authors: Ab Ghani, Mohd Ruddin, Mat Youb, Norsarizan, Sakidin, Hamzah, Syed Najib , Syed Salim
• Format: Conference or Workshop Item
• Language: English
• Published: 2010
• Subjects: TK Electrical engineering. Electronics Nuclear engineering
• Online Access: http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/9281/1/P54.pdf; http://eprints.utem.edu.my/id/eprint/9281/

The purpose of suspension system in automobile is to improve the ride comfort and road handling. In this research the ride and handling performance of a specific automobile with passive suspension system is compared to a proposed optimal control method active suspension system designed for that automobile. The controller will improve the ride quality and handling performance within a given suspension stroke limitation. The problems of passive control are excessive vertical wheel travel, non-optimum altitude of tire relative to road, also the force distribution of the suspension, resulting poor handling, body roll or body pitch when braking or accelerating and ride discomfort. This problem will be overcome by using active control suspension which the method chosen is optimal controller. The performance of this controller is determined by performing computer simulations using the MATLAB and SIMULINK. The results show that the active suspension system has reduced the peak overshoot of sprung mass displacement, sprung mass acceleration, suspension travel and tire deflection compared to passive suspension system.