Semiactive control methodologies for suspension control with magnetorheological dampers

Suspension systems are one of the most critical components of transportation vehicles. They are designed to provide comfort to the passengers to protect the chassis and the freight. Suspension systems are normally provided with dampers that mitigate these harmful and uncomfortable vibrations. In this paper, we explore two control methodologies (in time and frequency domain) used to design semiactive controllers for suspension systems that make use of magnetorheological dampers. These dampers are known because of their nonlinear dynamics, which requires the use of nonlinear control methodologies for an appropriate performance. The first methodology is based on the backstepping technique, which is applied with adaptation terms and H ∞ constraints. The other methodology to be studied is the quantitative feedback theory (QFT). Despite QFT is intended for linear systems, it can still be applied to nonlinear systems. This can be achieved by representing the nonlinear dynamics as a linear system with uncertainties that approximately represents the true behavior of the plant to be controlled. The semiactive controllers are simulated in MATLAB/Simulink for performance evaluation. © 2006 IEEE.