Model–Based Actuated Vertical Control of Ground Vehicles with Non-Negligible Roll Dynamics

Controllable vehicle suspensions have gained research and industrial interest in recent years, as they offer favorable adaptability of the chassis to different driving and road conditions. Classical suspension control strategies are simple but effective. They are mainly based on simplified models— the quarter car—to address the effects of heave motion as a decoupled degree of freedom from other contributions. In transient conditions, however, body heave motion might be influenced by roll. Specifically, steering maneuvers and road unevenness could induce heave-roll coupling effects. The objective of this paper is to propose a nonlinear, model-based control strategy able to improve vertical dynamics performance, even in the presence of non-negligible chassis roll. To give means for analysis, this approach is compared to a standard skyhook controller. It is shown that the proposed strategy outperforms its skyhook counterpart in terms of comfort (chassis vertical acceleration) and actuator command effort (output force).