Design and Development of a Suspension System for Vehicles

Syed Hasib Akhter Faruqui,

Graduate Student, Department of Mechanical Engineering, UTSA
sprung mass displacement, acceleration of sprung mass and


Abstract— This paper aims to design a controller for a vehicle

active suspension system of an automobile. The vehicle cab suspension dynamic flexibility [3].
motion is limited to heave in the y-direction and a small amount
of pitch u of the vehicle’s longitudinal axis. The tires are assumed
to remain in contact with the road surface at all times. Vehicle is
subjected to random excitation due to road unevenness and
variable velocity and sometimes due to speed bumps. The system
has three translational degree of freedom. Based on the degree
of freedom, from a rider’s comfort point of view the damping
parameters and spring stiffness are adjusted to fit the criteria of
a less bumpy ride. For controlling the vehicles degree of
movement, the controller is designed based on Proportional
controller, PID Controller, and pole placement. For the purpose
of analysis, this paper only deals with the linear part of the
system and excludes non-linear portion from the equation. The
result shows that the response of the controlled suspension
system can trace the input signal that is the PID controller is (a) Full Vehicles Model (b) Vehicles suspension
successfully able to control the variable shock absorber in order system
to eliminate the road surface disturbances effect to the car body.
Figure 1: Moving Vehicle and Suspension System Model
I. INTRODUCTION
A Basic automobile suspension that is known as a passive II. SYSTEM MODELLING EQUATIONS
suspension system consists of an energy storing element
normally a spring and an energy dissipating element normally A. Formation of state equations
a shock absorber [2]. An automobile suspension system that
consists of linear springs and damper system is shown in
Figure 1(b). Not only for stability but also to save energy due
to regenerative breaking stability control is introduced to the
system. Adequate control to the suspension system improves
vehicle stability and improved breaking control [1]. Now to
analyze the vehicle suspension system it is to be noted that the
vehicle dynamic system is subjected to actual road
displacements such as bumps which can be considered as
excitations recorded at the axles of the vehicle. The analysis is
restricted to only inputs concerning the road bumps. Figure 2: Suspension System Model for whole vehicle
The road profile is responsible for the system’s input u = The equations are obtained by equating from the
[Uf , Ur]T, where Uf and Ur are the height of the road (with suspension system shown in figure 2. The suspension and the
respect to some reference) underneath the front and rear tires, forces acting on the tires can be shown using the three masses
respectively. The system has three translational degrees of M , Mf f and Mr r. Thus, the model of the equations are given
freedom, y, yf, yr, which are the vertical displacements of the as-
vehicle cab and both front and rear axles from their
equilibrium positions. The lone rotational degree of freedom M Kfs yf‐ y Lfθ Bf – Lf Krs yr – y‐Lrθ
is the pitch angle θ. Br – ‐ Lr
Based on the model diagram the system model is derived Mf f ‐Kfs yf – y Lfθ – Bf – Lf Kft uf ‐ yf
as well as the input profile for the road bump. One of the Mr r ‐Krs yr – y‐Lrθ – Br – Lr Krt ur – yr
criteria to design the system will be to compare the amount of I Kfs yf – y Lfθ Bf – Lf Lf – Krs yr –
displacement of the vehicle in comparison to the bump of the
road. The lesser the displacement of the system the better the y‐Lrθ Br – Lr Lr
design of the control. Thus, to attain the desired suspension
system, in this paper a PID controller is designed based on the Note that the equations are linear as a result of assuming small
semi-active suspension system of a full car, which compared pitch angles, allowing the approximations sin(θ) ≈ θ and
with the Skyhook system simulation with the parameters of cos(θ) ≈ 1,

1
Considering the following for state variables- u = [Uf , Ur]T, where Uf and Ur are the height of the road (with
respect to some reference) underneath the front and rear tires,
Variable respectively. The input displacements Uf and Ur are based on
the speed bump profile and the forward speed of the car. The
State front tire displacement can be modeled by-
Variable
(Assumed)

Now, based on the table the state derivatives become-

=
=

=
=

=
=

=
=

Figure 3: The Generated Input Signal

Thus, the Matrices A, B, C, D will be-

III. SYSTEM ANALYSIS

The model is analyzed for both Open loop and Closed
Loop system. The Closed loop system is calculated
considering a PID and Proportional Controller. It is to be
mentioned the system in considered is a MIMO (Multiple
Input Multiple Output) System. The Specified MIMO System
has 4 outputs, 2 inputs, and 8 states. Due to insufficient space,
not all but one Transfer function is shown here.
Input 1 Output 1 Transfer Function:

And the parameters are given as-
B. Modelling the Road Bump Displacement
Say, the vehicle will pass over a bump. Now, the
automobile is traveling at a constant speed, U0 and encounters
a bump. The road profile is responsible for the system’s input
A. Open-loop Response
An open loop uncompensated system is always the first
step for a control engineer to begin with. Below we see the
system block diagram which was constructed using Simulink
in MATLAB and an input similar to, figure 3 was provided to
the transfer function at the end scope block gives us the system
behavior.
This was calculated for the state space model as well which
will be observed while designing the PID controller. The
system response can be checked back from the scope block in
the Simulink diagram. The scope will show the four responses
separately for all the azimuth control system. In case of angular
displacement the system response is converted to degree from
radians for better understanding of the system. Figure 4 shows
the Open-loop Simulink block diagram for the given system.

2

Figure 4: Open-loop Simulink block diagram
And the Open loop response is shown in figure 5. The
vehicle displacement varies from -0.189 to 0.627 in. despite
the 4 (unit) height of the speed bump (Figure 3). Also, the pitch
of the vehicle is constrained to -0.4038o ≤ u ≤ 0.3588o.
Figure 5: Open-loop response.
From the Open loop response it is evident that the system
will have a significant high enough displacement. And root
locus plot for the whole system is plot together in one plot,
Which suggests the stability of the system.
Imaginary Axis (seconds )
-1
Figure 6: Root Locus for Open-loop system
3
B. Closed-Loop Response
When an open system is provided with some feedback it
is then called as closed system. In this case, a unit negative
feedback is used to make it a simple closed loop and the
system is checked for response. As before, for closed system
without changing and parameters from before negative closed
loop response is shown in figure 7. The vehicle displacement
varies from -0.189 to 0.253 in. despite the 4 (unit) height of
the speed bump (Figure 3). Also, the pitch of the vehicle is
constrained to -0.4013o ≤ u ≤ 0.4037o suggesting that the pitch
angle displacement increasing. Although the displacement for
Front and Rear axles has been lessened in comparison to
Open-loop System.
Figure 7: Closed-loop response (negative feedback).
IV. CONTROLLER DESIGN
A. Controller Specifications
For the response surface, the user defined design criterions
are as follows.
 Overshoot less than 10%
 Rise time less than 3 seconds
 Settling time less than 10 seconds

Steady-state error less than 3%
B. Proportional Controller
Proportional controller by definition, means adding a gain
to the transfer function of our concern. Below shown is a
proportional controller based block diagram. From the root
locus (Figure 6) it can be seen that, the system is already
stable as it does not extend to positive x-axis. By finding the
value of gain for the whole system the proportional controller
can be designed for the whole system.
 pitch of the vehicle is constrained to -0.0193o ≤ u ≤ 0.0645o.
The closed loop PID system is shown in figure 9.

Figure 8: Closed loop block diagram with a controller

The system response for the system is shown in figure 8. It

can be seen that, by adding a proportional controller there
isn’t much of a change in terms of response from the system.
But in terms of controller specification it covers three of the
criteria’s. Thus using the pidTuner command of MATLAB
we can adjust for the gain of the system.
Figure 9: Closed loop PID controller system
And the response is recorded in figure 10. The system is
checked with a step function to check all the criteria of
controller design falls on the same criteria as selected
controller. Which is shown in figure 11. The stability criterion
is shown for input 1 System 1 and System 2. The final system
seems more stable in terms of vehicle stability and response.

Figure 8: Closed-loop response of the system with

proportional controller.

C. Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) Controller

Figure 10: Closed Loop PID controller Response
A proportional-integral-derivative controller is a
control loop feedback mechanism (controller) commonly used
in industrial control systems. A PID controller continuously
calculates an error value as the difference between a desired
set point and a measured process variable.
Kp, Ki, and Kd are dependent on each other. In fact, changing
one of these variables can change the effect of the other two.
For this reason, the table should only be used as a reference
when you are determining the values for Kp, Ki, and Kd

∗ ∗
C(s) =
Figure 11: Controller Criteria
Using the pidTuner adjusting the PID values and using a
proportional controller as negative feedback the best stability D. Pole Placement
for the vehicle system. The total displacement felled within Given, the multi-input system,
the limit of 0 to 0.093 and for yf the range reduces in range of x=Ax+Bu
0 to 0.367 and yr falls under the range of -.0531 to 0.2871.

4
and a vector p of desired self-conjugate closed-loop pole
locations, place computes a gain matrix K such that the state
feedback u = –Kx places the closed-loop poles at the locations
p. In other words, the eigenvalues of (A – BK) match the
entries of p (up to the ordering). In MATLAB, this can be
done directly. For the purpose of simplicity, the operation of
control design with pole placement is done for input one
system one. The operation can be done for all the systems
simultaneously. Applying the pole placement for a feedback
loop stabilizes the system in comparison to the open-loop
system. As the system step response shows the characteristics
of an underdamped system and additional Integral Controller
is added to the system to improve the transient response of the
system. Although the settling time for the system increases
than before still it is within the control criteria of the designed
system. Figure 12 shows the step response for the Pole
placement without the added Integral controller and Figure 13
shows the step response for the Pole placement with added
Integral controller.
Amplitude
Figure 12: Step response of Pole Placement controller
(underdamped)
Displacement
Figure 13: Step response of Pole Placement controller
E. Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR)
Linear Quadratic Regulator calculates the optimal gain
matrix K. For a continuous-time system, the state-feedback
law u = –Kx minimizes the quadratic cost function
subject to the system dynamics
˙x=Ax+Bu.
5
In addition to the state-feedback gain K, lqr (MATLAB
command) returns the solution S of the associated Riccati
equation-
and the closed-loop eigenvalues e = eig(A-B*K). K is
derived from S using
Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR) method generates the
"best" gain matrix K, without explicitly choosing to place the
closed-loop poles in particular locations. This type of control
technique optimally balances the system error and the control
effort based on a cost that the designer specifies that defines
the relative importance of minimizing errors and minimizing
control effort. In the case of the regulator problem, it is
assumed that the reference is zero. Therefore, in this case the
magnitude of the error is equal to the magnitude of the state.
To use this LQR method, definition of two parameters: the
state-cost weighted matrix (Q) and the control weighted
matrix (R) are needed. For simplicity, the control weighted
matrix is considered as equal to 1 (R=1), and the state-cost
matrix (Q) equal to p*CT*C. Employing the vector C from the
output equation means that we will only consider those states
in the output in defining our cost. In this case, θ is the only
state variable in the output. The weighting factor (p) will be
varied to modify the step response. In this case, R is a scalar
since we have a single input system.
Applying the LQR for a feedback loop stabilizes the system
in comparison to the open-loop system. As the initial system
with LQR controller had an under damped step response an
additional integral controller is added to the system. Figure 14
shows the step response for the LQR Controller. For less
values of “p” higher values for gain K (0.4465, 0.0589, -
0.1228, 0.0003, -0.1292, 0.0003, 2.1803, 0.4258) and also the
exaggeration in overshoot and other design specifications
Displacement
Figure 14: Step response of LQR controller
V. DISCUSSION
Placing all the controllers and checking them with the
desired criteria mentioned in section IV (A), it can be
observed that LQR and PID controller fulfills all the design
criteria. Although in terms of settling time LQR has a faster
response time than the PID controller but again PID controller
has a low overshoot. That is closed to 3.5 %. Now,
considering the whole MIMO system PID controller gives an
more stabilized system for the active suspension system. The
controller designed based on one of the system output transfer
function is shown in figure 15. The figure shows a comparison
of all the system response.
Displacement
[4] Smith, M.C., 1995. Achievable dynamic response for
automotive active suspensions. Vehicle System
Dynamics, 24(1), pp.1-33.
[5] Zhang, J.J., Han, W.S., Cao, L.Y. and Gao, R.Z., 2011.
The Simulation Analysis of Semi-Active Suspension
System in Vehicle Based on Sliding Mode Control with
Varying Structure. In Advanced Materials Research
(Vol. 216, pp. 96-100). Trans Tech Publications.
[6] Norman S.Nise. “Control System Engineering”, 6th
ed.vol.1, Ed.International:Wiley, 2011, pp. 455–710.

Figure 15: Comparison of all the controller systems for

step response (Based on all the design criteria)

VI. CONCLUSION
This paper designs the active suspension based on PID
controller, Pole placement, L, and analyzes the values of
active suspension acceleration of sprung mass and suspension
dynamic flexibility, which shows that the effect is reduction
in displacement for the vehicle position. From our analysis
e=it is evident that the design with PID model was the one,
that performs to the designed specification of the controller.

APPENDIX
The Code for calculating the PID Controls is added with
this report.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author of this report would like to convey his thanks
to Dr. Bing Dong for his help in times of need while
completing this project.

REFERENCES
[1] Mouleeswaran, S., 2012. Design and development of PID
controller-based active suspension system for
automobiles. INTECH Open Access Publisher.
[2] "Differential Equation - Modeling - Spring and Mass |
www.Sharetechnote.com . Last Accessed on: 15 Mar.
2017.
[3] Rear motor control for a 4WD hybrid electric vehicle
stability - IEEE Xplore Document. 2017. Rear motor
control for a 4WD hybrid electric vehicle stability - IEEE
Xplore Document. [ONLINE] Available at:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1563619/.
[Accessed 13 April 2017].