ℌ∞/LPV observer for an industrial semi-active suspension

Abstract— In this paper, an H∞/LPV observer to be used in an automotive suspension control application is proposed. The system considered is a road disturbance affected quarter car equipped with an industrial SOBEN damper. This observer is designed in the H∞ framework in order to minimize the effect of the unknown road disturbance on the estimated states. The damper studied in this paper is highly nonlinear, therefore an adaptative linear parameter varying (LPV ) structure is proposed to improve the robustness of the observer. The observer presented here uses a single position sensor and is easy to implement in a real industrial application because of its simple linear structure. Some simulation results highlight the performances of this observer in realistic noise and uncertainty conditions. The estimated state variables of the quarter car model could be used for example in a state feedback control strategy to improve the comfort and roadholding level of a vehicle.