SMART CONTROL OF

ACTIVE
SUSPENSION
SYSTEM USING
FUZZY LOGIC
CONTROLLER
VEHICLE DYNAMICS PROJECT

ABSTRACT
The principle objective of our work is to develop a model for
better results of the suspension system. At first, with basic of two
degree of freedom (DOF) quarter car model with basic equations was
studied, which was followed by its combination in active suspension
system. Later we initiated fuzzy logic controller (FLC) in active
suspension and simulated in MATLAB SIMULINK. The results with
compared with passive system and it depicted fuzzy logic controlled
suspension system provides better output than the other. It provides
better ride and road handling.
Keywords: Quarter car model, passive system, active suspension
system, fuzzy logic controller, MATLAB SIMULINK

INTRODUCTION
We all know that vehicle suspension system possess high nonlinearity and is complex in nature. The main objective of any
suspension system is to provide comfortable ride to passenger. There
are basically three types of suspension system viz., passive, semi
active and active suspension system.
Passive suspension system basically consist of a spring and
damper system. Both spring and damper are arranged in parallel to
each other in passive. The semi active consist of variable dampers and
active consist of force actuator and sensors attached to it. The sensor
include for body velocity, displacement of suspension and body
acceleration as well as wheel velocity.
At the initial stage of development of better options for passive
system the researchers worked on linear controllers like PI, PID which
had certain limitations. The limitations were their inaccurate sensing
and various others. This made a path way towards non- linear
controllers. Hence, fuzzy logic controllers are used nowadays . The
principle variables evaluation are vehicle body acceleration which
determines ride comfort and suspension deflection which indicates
limit of vehicle body.

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ACTIVE SUSPENSION SYSTEM

To achieve good road isolation, a soft spring is required, for good
road handling at frequency equal to natural frequency spring of high
stiffness is required. Also in various cases high damping whereas low in
certain cases. These conflicting requirements cannot be meet by
passive type of suspension system.
To provide the vehicle with improved ride quality, handling, and
performance under various operating conditions, the concept of an
active suspension has emerged. The spring and shock absorber in
conventional system has been replaced by the force actuator. The
actuator can be installed in parallel with conventional suspension
spring.
The operating conditions of the vehicle are continuously
monitored by sensors. Based on the signals obtained by the sensors
and the prescribed control strategy, the force in the actuator is
modulated to achieve improved ride, handling, and performance.

Figure 1. Active suspension system

Quarter Car Model

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As can be seen from the figure, a quarter car model is considered. In

the figure, mb is the mass of the one quarter of the total car, mw is the
wheel mass, k1 is the spring constant (stiffness) of the suspension
spring, k2 is the spring constant (stiffness) of the tire, c1 is the
damping coefficient of the suspension systems damper, c2 is the
damping coefficient of the tire, u is the desired force by the cylinder,
x1 is the body displacement, x2 is the whell displacement and w is the
road input.

Figure 2 Quarter Car Model

Governing equations:

Suspension Design with PID Controller:

The PID controllers (in which P, I and D stand for proportional,
integral and derivative, respectively) have been used to control various
engineering systems such as suspensions, and DC motors. In this
study, the results of the FLC are going to be compared with those of
PID controller. Consequently, firstly, the PID controller is introduced. In

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this control method, with the aid of the Laplace transform, two transfer
functions are derived. As known, the Laplace transform is one of the
mathematical tools used for the solution of linear ordinary differential
equations. In comparison with classical linear differential equation
solving techniques, the Laplace transform has a simple construction.
Utilizing the Laplace transform, the transfer functions G1(s) and G2(s)
are derived from the equations of motions.

For the car suspension model, the PID controller block diagram is
shown in which u and w are system inputs and x1-x2 is the system
output.

Figure 3. Block diagram of PID controller

Fuzzy Logic Controller

FLC is used for disturbance rejection control to reduce unwanted
vehicles motion in active suspension system. Non- linearity is handled
by rules, membership functions. FLC is based on the general principles

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of fuzzy set theory and introduced by Zadeh. Fuzzy set theory provides
a means for representing uncertainties.
Fuzzy logic is a method of controlling a system where all inputs
conditions are not well defined. Because of linguistic statements from
the rule base of the fuzzy logic controller, the control strategies
resemble human thinking.
Structure of Fuzzy Logic Controller

Figure Block diagram of FLC

1. A fuzzification interface, which converts controller inputs into
information that the inference mechanism can easily use to
activate and apply rules.
2. A rule-base (a set of If-Then rules), which contains a fuzzy logic
quantification of the experts linguistic description of how to
achieve good control.
3. An inference mechanism (also called an inference engine or
fuzzy inference module), which emulates the experts decision
making in interpreting and applying knowledge about how best
to control the plant.
4. A defuzzification interface, which converts the conclusions of the
inference mechanism into actual inputs for the process.
The linguistic variables required in the case of semi- active suspension
are two viz., body velocity and wheel velocity, whereas in the case of
active suspension system are body velocity, deflection velocity and
body acceleration.
Rules for FLC Model
The various rules defined are shown below with certain examples:

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Rule 1: IF (x1-x2=PM) AND (X1=PM) AND (X1=ZE) THEN (u=ZE)

In this way nearly 75 rules were defined are put into the fuzzy logic
controller.
NV: Negative Very Big
NB: Negative Big
Medium
NM: Negative Medium
NS: Negative Small
Big
ZE: Zero

PS: Positive Small

PM:
Positive
PB: Positive Big
PV: Positive Very

In FLC, we have freedom to choose the membership function such as

Gaussian function, triangular, trapezoidal etc. but most of the times
the triangular and trapezoidal are preferred. The membership function
of various input and output linguistic variables are shown in figure
below.

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After the development of membership function, the FLC was developed

and input the suspension system in Simulink model and results were
plotted. We also tried to compare the results of the PID and the FLC in
the matlab Simulink. All the Simulink models are attached at the end of
report.

Results
All the Simulink models were compared and we
came to results that fuzzy logic controller provides better results than
other controllers.

Conclusion
Even nowadays better methods are being developed
for the control of suspension like LQR, etc which provide superior
results than FLC. But due to ease of FLC many reachers are working on
it.

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REFERENCES
1. Dae Sung Joo et al Development and Evaluation of Fuzzy Logic
Controller for Vehicle Suspension Systems in 1995 IEEE
proceedings.
2. Faried Hasbullah et al A comparative Analysis of LQR and Fuzzy
logic Controller for Active Suspension Using Half Car Model in
2010 11th Int. Conf. Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision
Singapore, 7-10th December 2010
3. Tinnavelli Ramamohan Rao et al Active Suspension System of a
3 DOF Quarter Car Using Fuzzy Logic Control for Ride Comfort in
2013 IEEE proceedings.
4. K.Rajeswari et al Simulation of Suspension System with
Intelligent Active Force Control in 2010 International Conference
on Advances in Recent Technologies in Communication and
Computing.
5. Zheng Yinhuan Research on fuzzy logic control of vehicle
suspension system in 2010 IEEE proceedings.
6. Jeen Lin et al Intelligent Control of Active Suspension Systems
in IEEE transactions on Industrial electronics, VOL. 58, NO. 2,
February 2011
7.

Andrew J. Barr Control of Active suspension using Fuzzy logic in

1996 IEEE proceedings.

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