Active Off-Road Seat Suspension System Using Intelligent Active Force Control

Abstract

Transmitted vibration from vehicles to driver body generates some problems in the long term. Passive and active seat suspensions are used in heavy duty vehicles to reduce unwanted vibration and prevent health problems due to oscillation. Seat suspension must minimize the driver's body displacement and acceleration to increase riding convenience. Active force control (AFC) method is a new technique which is used in active controllers and makes them more accurate. Therefore, this work represents the possibility of applying AFC strategy for an active seat suspension control to increase its robustness. An AFC-based scheme is designed and simulated in MATLAB software. In addition, artificial neural network (ANN) is integrated into the AFC loop to approximate estimated mass of the seat and human body for the proposed controller. The training of ANN with multi-layer feedforward structure is carried out using Levenberg-Marquardt learning algorithm. To evaluate the neuro-AFC control system robustness, the seat is subjected to various types of disturbances. The results of the present study illustrate that the neuro-AFC technique is computationally simple and efficient compared to the classic proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller in suppressing undesired vibration of heavy duty vehicles' seat. The neuro-AFC scheme is found to demonstrate superior performance for various road profiles compared to pure PID controller, and it can be successfully utilized in heavy duty vehicles such as industrial and agricultural tractors.

A Systematic Literature Review of Various Control Techniques for Active Seat Suspension Systems

“…Recently, the AFC was utilized in the active suspension system to ensure the passenger ride and car stability [107]. Hence, the active force control method was proposed by [108] to increase the robustness of the active seat suspension. The artificial neural network (ANN) was used to approximately estimate the seat and human body weight.…”

Performance Investigation of Integrated Model of Quarter Car Semi-Active Seat Suspension with Human Model

“…Choi and Han [9] and Bae and Kang [16] have studied the seat suspension with the human model without considering the vehicle suspension model. Gohari and Tahmasebi [17] implemented the active control on the seat suspension while analysing the performance with various road disturbances, but only the seat suspension was considered. Swethamarai and Lakshmi [18] implemented a Fuzzy-PID controller for the quarter car active suspension system with 3-DOF and reported that the Fuzzy-PID control reduced the driver's body acceleration better than Fuzzy and PID controls, thus improving the ride comfort.…”

Artificial neural network predication and validation of optimum suspension parameters of a passive suspension system

“…Author [10] had implemented active force control (AFC) technique to actively control the seat suspension of heavy duty vehicles. AFC is integrated with ANN to estimate the mass of driver and seat.…”