Ride and handling analysis for an active anti-roll bar: case study on composite nonlinear control strategy

Abstract

This paper presents a comparison of ride and handling analysis for an active anti-roll bar system using various types of controller. Work using conventional and modern control approaches has been investigated by previous researches. This study further extends this work by investigating a particular modern control technique using a linear quadratic regulator, linear quadratic Gaussian and composite nonlinear feedback controller in designing the closed loop feedback for an anti-roll bar system control scheme. A simple linear quadratic regulator and a linear quadratic Gaussian are first investigated. An active anti-roll bar system has to balance the trade-off between ride comfort and handling performance. The new linear quadratic Gaussian composite nonlinear feedback (LQG-CNF) fusion control strategy is developed to improve the performances on vehicle ride comfort and handling for an active anti-roll bar system. The linear half car model is combined with a single track model with roll dynamics. The performance of the controllers is compared and the simulation results show that the proposed control strategy gives better performance in terms of vehicle ride comfort and handling.