Vibration control of an energy regenerative seat suspension with variable external resistance

Abstract

In this paper, an energy regenerative seat suspension with a variable external resistance is proposed and built, and a semi-active controller for its vibration control is also designed and validated. The energy regenerative seat suspension is built with a three-phase generator and a gear reducer, which are installed in the scissors structure centre of the seat suspension, and the vibration energy is directly harvested from the rotary movement of suspension's scissors structure. The electromagnetic torque of the semi-active seat suspension actuator is controlled by an external variable resistor. An integrated model including the seat suspension's kinematics and the generator is built and proven to match the test result very well. A simplified experimental phenomenon model is also built based on the test results for the controller design. A state feedback controller is proposed for the regenerative seat suspension's semi-active vibration control. The proposed regenerative seat suspension and its controller are validated with both simulations and experiments. A well-tuned passive seat suspension is applied to evaluate the regenerative seat's performance. Based on ISO 2631-1, the frequency-weighted root mean square (FW-RMS) acceleration of the proposed seat suspension has a 22.84% reduction when compared with the passive one, which indicates the improvement of ride comfort. At the same time, the generated RMS power is 1.21 W. The proposed regenerative seat suspension can greatly improve the driver's ride comfort and has the potential to be developed to a self-powered semi-active system.

Design and Potential Power Recovery of Two Types of Energy Harvesting Shock Absorbers

“…The recovery of energy from different areas of the vehicle is a topic that has attracted the attention of many researchers in recent years, resulting in a large number of publications. A considerable number of references propose harvesting energy from: the heat given off by the exhaust pipes [1][2][3][4][5], the absorption of the kinetic energy in the brakes [6][7][8][9], the deformation of the tires [10,11], the vibrations of the engine [12,13], the seats [14], and also the suspension system of the vehicle [15].…”

Review on Seat Suspension System Technology Development

“…According to the obtained results, MRE-based devices are comparatively low-priced and strong in comparison with other semi-active systems like MR dampers [81]. Another method to implement semi-active seat suspension is an energy regenerative seat suspension, which was suggested and built by Ning et al [89]. The simplified layout of the regenerative seat suspension system is given in Figure 11.…”

“…Because the regenerative seat suspension shows a good performance, there is high potential to develop this system as a selfpowered semi-active system. Another method to implement semi-active seat suspension is an energy regenerative seat suspension, which was suggested and built by Ning et al [89]. The simplified layout of the regenerative seat suspension system is given in Figure 11.…”

“…The regenerative shock absorber converts vibration energy into electrical energy through electromagnetic coupling and uses the electrical energy to generate electromagnetic damping force. Another method to implement semi-active seat suspension is an energy regenerative seat suspension, which was suggested and built by Ning et al [89]. The simplified layout of the regenerative seat suspension system is given in Figure 11.…”

A Review of Low-Frequency Active Vibration Control of Seat Suspension Systems

“…The frequency-weighted root-mean-square (FW-RMS) acceleration of the seat was reduced by 43.6%, indicating that ride comfort was greatly improved. [21] developed a semiactive vibration control seating system based on an energy harvest device with variable external resistance. The energy regeneration seat device included a three-phase generator and a gear reducer mounted at the centre of the scissor-like structure of the seat, and the vibrational energy was collected directly from the rotational motion of the scissor-like structure.…”