Design and development of a semi-active suspension system for a quarter car model using PI controller

This paper presents the design and development of a semi-active suspension system for a vehicle. The main idea is to develop a system that is able to damp vibration of the vehicle body while crossing the bumps on the road. This system is modeled for a single wheel assembly and then the laboratory prototype of the complete system has been manufactured. It is used to physically simulate the spring-mass-damper system in vehicle and observe the frequency response to the external disturbances. The developed low-cost smart experimental equipment consists of a motor with offset mass which works as an oscillator to induce vibration, a spring-mass-damper system where the variable damper works as a pneumatic cylinder that allows varying the damping constant (c). Proportional-Integral (PI) controller is used to control the damping properties of the semi-active suspension system automatically. The system is designed in contrast to the most of the available suspension systems in the market that have only passive damping properties. The results of this research demonstrate the efficiency of the developed variable damper-based control system for the vehicle suspension system.

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Opracowanie ze środków MNiSW w ramach umowy 812/P-DUN/2016 na działalność upowszechniającą naukę (zadania 2017).