Adaptive robust force control for vehicle active suspensions

In this paper, the modular adaptive robust control (MARC) technique is applied to design the force loop controller of an electro-hydraulic active suspension system. A key advantage of this modular design approach lies in the fact that the adaptation algorithm can be designed for explicit estimation convergence. The effect of parameter adaptation on force tracking performance can be compensated and thus it is possible to guaranteed certain control performance. Experimental results from a quarter-car active suspension test rig show that when realistic external disturbances and measurement noises exist, the modular design achieves a better estimate than the non-modular ARC design. The improved estimation was found to result in control signals with slightly lower magnitude while maintaining similar tracking performance. Copyright # 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.