Integration Design and Optimization Control of a Dynamic Vibration Absorber for Electric Wheels with In-Wheel Motor

This paper presents an integration design scheme and an optimization control strategy for electric wheels to suppress the in-wheel vibration and improve vehicle ride comfort. The in-wheel motor is considered as a dynamic vibration absorber (DVA), which is isolated from the unsprung mass by using a spring and a damper. The proposed DVA system is applicable for both the inner-rotor motor and outer-rotor motor. Parameters of the DVA system are optimized for the typical conditions, by using the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, to achieve an acceptable vibration performance. Further, the DVA actuator force is controlled by using the alterable-domain-based fuzzy control method, to adaptively suppress the wheel vibration and reduce the wallop acting on the in-wheel motor (IWM) as well. In addition, a suspension actuator force is also controlled, by using the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) method, to enhance the suspension performance and meanwhile improve vehicle ride comfort. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed DVA system effectively suppresses the wheel vibration and simultaneously reduces the wallop acting on the IWM. Also, the alterable-domain-based fuzzy control method performs better than the conventional ones, and the LQR-based suspension exhibits excellent performance in vehicle ride comfort.