Full Vehicle Experimental Testing of Semi-active Suspension Equipped with Magnetorheological Dampers

This paper presents comprehensive experimental exploration on control performance of magnetorheological (MR) suspension system under various road conditions. MR dampers with monotube structure are designed and installed on front and rear vehicle suspensions. The response time of MR damper force is experimentally determined. Meanwhile, a feasible inverse model is constructed to portray the behavior of the MR dampers based on data obtained from experimental testing with random displacement and current as inputs. An output feedback control strategy is proposed to reduce the vertical response of sprung and unsprung mass, as well as the roll and pitch angles. To be practical, the required feedback signals are relative velocity of MR dampers, the vertical velocity at vehicle mass center, and the angular velocity of roll and pitch which are convenient to collect by commercial sensors like displacement sensor and IMU. To verify the feasibility of the system, a passenger vehicle with four MR dampers suspension was tested on various road profiles. The experiment results indicate the better performance of ride comfort and body attitude of vehicle can be achieved by the proposed MR suspension system.