Application of the independent component analysis in the estimation of the road disturbance applied on a nonlinear suspension system

Abstract

One of the major factors that can affect the vehicle performance and the passenger comfort is the road disturbance. The objective of this study is to identify this road excitation acting on the vehicle using blind source separation (BSS) technique which is the independent component analysis (ICA). This method is applied on a nonlinear suspension system since the vehicle has a nonlinear behavior. The studied system is a quarter-car model, it contains the most basic features of the vertical model of the vehicle. The estimation method is very efficient due to its simplicity and short computing time. It is based only on the knowledge of the dynamic responses of the system under study. The validation of the obtained results using the ICA method was done by computing three performance criteria. Finally, a good agreement is found between the original signals and the estimated ones.