Design of a two‐level controller for an active suspension system

The paper focuses on a control design for a vehicle suspension system in which a balance between different performance demands is achieved. The starting point of the control design is a full–car model which contains nonlinear components, i.e. the dynamics of the dampers and springs and nonlinear actuator dynamics. In order to handle the high complexity of the problem this paper proposes the design of a two‐level controller of an active suspension system. The required control force is computed by applying a high‐level controller, which is designed using a linear parameter varying (LPV) method. For the control design the model is augmented with weighting functions specified by the performance demands and the uncertainty assumptions. The actuator generating the necessary control force is modelled as a nonlinear system for which a low‐level force‐tracking controller is designed. To obtain the low‐level controller a backstepping method is proposed. As an alternative solution a feedback linearization method is also presented. The operation of the controller is illustrated through simulation examples. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley and Sons Asia Pte Ltd and Chinese Automatic Control Society