Controller design of active suspension system with terrain preview using evolutionary multi-objective algorithms

Abstract

Suspension systems with terrain preview have wide applicability for off-road and military vehicles moving on rough surfaces. Preview control of active suspension systems gives it great flexibility in controlling system behavior. The focus of the study is evolutionary multi-objective optimization of preview controlled active suspension system with several objectives for controller design. The suspension model with base system data and passive response has been explained along with the structure of the preview controller. Multiple conflicting objectives to achieve ride comfort, good handling and road grip are identified and a modified NSGA-II algorithm is used to obtain the trade-off solutions. Thereafter a decision making approach is suggested to select optimum gains for the controller. The obtained optimal solutions are compared with the reference vehicle and other multi-objective optimization strategies. The proposed strategy improves on the reference vehicle objectives along with showing the benefits of multi-criteria approach. © 2012 Springer India Pvt. Ltd.