SEMESTER

PROJECT ME-214

Automotive Suspension System

ME-211
ME-214
ME-222
ME-230
 Table of Contents
System Parameters.................................................................................................................................. 2
Design Requirement ................................................................................................................................ 2
Dynamic Equation ............................................................................................... 3
Transfer Function.............................................................................................................................. 3-4
Solving Transfer Function In Matlab.................................................................... 4
Response Of Transfer Function ........................................................................ 5-9
Simulink Model…………………………………………………………………………………………… 10
Feedback Controller……………………………………………………………………………….....11-12

Controlled Output ……………………………………………………………………………………….13

Conclusion, ……………………………………………………………………………………………………13

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 MODELLING OF AN AUTOMOTIVE SUSPENSION SYSTEM

SYSTEM PARAMETERS:
(M1) 1/4 bus body mass 2500 kg

(M2) suspension mass 320 kg

(K1) spring constant of suspension system 80,000 N/m

(K2) spring constant of wheel and tire 500,000 N/m

(b1) damping constant of suspension system 350 N.s/m

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(b2) damping constant of wheel and tire 15,020 N.s/m

(U) control force

DESIGN REQUIREMENTS:
A good bus suspension system should have satisfactory road holding ability, while still providing comfort when
riding over bumps and holes in the road. When the bus is experiencing any road disturbance (i.e. pot holes,
cracks, and uneven pavement),the bus body should not have large oscillations, and the oscillations should
dissipate quickly. Since the distance X1-W is very difficult to measure, and the deformation of the tire (X2-W)
is negligible, we will use the distance X1-X2 instead of X1-W as the output in our problem.
The road disturbance (W) in this problem will be simulated by a step input. This step could represent the bus
coming out of a pothole. We want to design a feedback controller so that the output (X1-X2) has an overshoot
less than 5% and a settling time shorter than 5 seconds.

DYNAMIC EQUATIONS OF THE SYSTEM:

DERIVING THE TRANSFER FUNCTION:

Assume that all of the initial conditions are zero, so that these equations represent the situation
where the vehicle wheel goes up a bump. The dynamic equations above can be expressed in
the form of transfer functions by taking the Laplace Transform. After derivation of the above
equations to the transfer functions G1(s) and G2(s) is shown below where each transfer
function has an output of, X1-X2, and inputs of U and W, respectively.

When we want to consider the control input U(s) only, we set W(s) = 0. Thus we get the transfer
function G1(s) as in the following:

When we want to consider the disturbance input W(s) only, we set U(s) = 0. Thus we get the
transfer function G2(s) as in the following:
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Where,
ENTERING THE TRANSFER FUNCTION IN MATLAB:
For the given data matlab can simplify the above equations for us to give the simplified transfer
functions as:
clear
clc
M1 = 2500;
M2 = 320;
K1 = 80000;
K2 = 500000;
b1 = 350;
b2 = 15020;
s = tf('s');
G1 = ((M1+M2)*s^2+b2*s+K2)/((M1*s^2+b1*s+K1)*(M2*s^2+(b1+b2)*s+(K1+K2))-
(b1*s+K1)*(b1*s+K1))
G2 = (-M1*b2*s^3-M1*K2*s^2)/((M1*s^2+b1*s+K1)*(M2*s^2+(b1+b2)*s+(K1+K2))-
(b1*s+K1)*(b1*s+K1))

COMMAND WINDOW:

G1 =
2820 s^2 + 15020 s + 500000
------------------------------------------------------------
800000 s^4 + 3.854e07 s^3 + 1.481e09 s^2 + 1.377e09 s + 4e10
Continuous-time transfer function.
G2 =
-3.755e07 s^3 - 1.25e09 s^2
------------------------------------------------------------
800000 s^4 + 3.854e07 s^3 + 1.481e09 s^2 + 1.377e09 s + 4e10
Continuous-time transfer function.

IMPULSE AND STEP RESPONSES OF THE TWO TRANSFER FUNCTIONS:

FOR G1:
clear
clc
M1 = 2500;
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M2 = 320;
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K1 = 80000;
K2 = 500000;
b1 = 350;
b2 = 15020;
s = tf('s');
G1 = ((M1+M2)*s^2+b2*s+K2)/((M1*s^2+b1*s+K1)*(M2*s^2+(b1+b2)*s+(K1+K2))-
(b1*s+K1)*(b1*s+K1))
zpk=zpk(G1)
pzmap(G1)
figure;
step(G1);
stepinfo=stepinfo(G1)
figure;
impulse(G1);

COMMAND WINDOW:

G1 =
2820 s^2 + 15020 s + 500000
------------------------------------------------------------
800000 s^4 + 3.854e07 s^3 + 1.481e09 s^2 + 1.377e09 s + 4e10

Continuous-time transfer function.

zpk =

0.003525 (s^2 + 5.326s + 177.3)

---------------------------------------------
(s^2 + 0.2197s + 27.58) (s^2 + 47.95s + 1813)

Continuous-time zero/pole/gain model.

stepinfo =
struct with fields:

RiseTime: 0.2376
SettlingTime: 34.1347
SettlingMin: 3.0446e-06
SettlingMax: 2.2598e-05
Overshoot: 80.7836
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Undershoot: 0
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Peak: 2.2598e-05
PeakTime: 0.5916

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FOR G2:
clear
clc
M1 = 2500;
M2 = 320;
K1 = 80000;
K2 = 500000;
b1 = 350;
b2 = 15020;
s = tf('s');
G2 = (-M1*b2*s^3-M1*K2*s^2)/((M1*s^2+b1*s+K1)*(M2*s^2+(b1+b2)*s+(K1+K2))-
(b1*s+K1)*(b1*s+K1))
zpk=zpk(G2)
pzmap(G2)
figure;
step(G2);
stepinfo=stepinfo(G2)
figure;
impulse(G2);
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COMMAND WINDOW:
G2 =

-3.755e07 s^3 - 1.25e09 s^2

------------------------------------------------------------
800000 s^4 + 3.854e07 s^3 + 1.481e09 s^2 + 1.377e09 s + 4e10

Continuous-time transfer function.

zpk =

-46.938 s^2 (s+33.29)

---------------------------------------------
(s^2 + 0.2197s + 27.58) (s^2 + 47.95s + 1813)

Continuous-time zero/pole/gain model.

stepinfo =
struct with fields:

RiseTime: 0
SettlingTime: 33.5112
SettlingMin: -1.1034
SettlingMax: 0.8223
Overshoot: Inf
Undershoot: Inf
Peak: 1.1034
PeakTime: 0.0499

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Page 9
SIMULINK MODEL:
We modelled he suspension system in Simulink as shown:

OUTPUT OF THE ABOVE SYSTEM:

From this graph of the open-loop response for a unit step actuated force, we can see that the system is under-
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damped. People sitting in the bus will feel very small amount of oscillation. Moreover, the bus takes an
unacceptably long time to reach the steady state (the settling time is very large).So we need to tune our model
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for desired response.

USING FEEDBACK CONTROLLER TO TUNE THE RESPONSE:
We want to design a feedback controller so that when the road disturbance (W) is simulated by a unit step input, the
output (X1-X2) has a settling time less than 5 seconds and an overshoot less than 5%.

A linear model of the system (in state space or transfer function form) can be extracted from a Simulink model into
MATLAB. This is done through the use of In1 and Out1 blocks (which replace the U and X1-X2 inputs in the above
model respectively) and the MATLAB function linmod on our model file saved as suspmod. We will extract only
the model from the input U to the output X1-X2 using the following command.

[A,B,C,D]=linmod('suspmod')
[num,den]=ss2tf(A,B,C,D)

COMMAND WINDOW:
A=

1.0e+03 *

0 0 0.0010 0

0 0 0 0.0010

-0.0320 0.0320 -0.0001 0.0001

0.2500 -1.8125 0.0011 -0.0480

B=

0.0004

-0.0031

C=

1 -1 0 0

D=

num =

0 0 0.0035 0.0188 0.6250

den =

1.0e+04 *

0.0001 0.0048 0.1851 0.1721 5.0000

For this system, we had to use integral action to achieve zero steady-state error, so we added an extra state
which is int(X1-X2) = int(Y1). In reality the bus will eventually reach an equilibrium that yields a zero steady-
state error. The new states are X1, X1_dot, Y1, Y1_dot, and Y2. Also the state-space matrices, A, B, and C,
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become the following after the addition of the new state.

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Aa = [[A,[0 0 0 0]'];[C, 0]];

Ba = [B;[0 0]];
Ca = [C,0];
Da = D;
sys=ss(Aa,Ba,Ca,Da);

This controller is acting like a PID controller. The integral control is obtained from the new state. The
proportional control is obtained from a gain on Y1 or X1-X2. The direct derivative control of the output isn't
possible, since derivative of Y1 or X1-X2 isn't a state. Instead we use the derivative of X1, which is available
for feedback. (While X1 maybe hard to measure, X1_dot could be obtained by integrating the output of an
accelerometer mounted on the bus.) It is similar to adding more damping to the velocity of the oscillation of
the bus suspension.

First we convert our Simulink model into subsystem model in which we need to create a vector signal out of
the five scalar outputs in order to multiply by the feedback gain matrix K and build a full state-feedback
controller around the plant model. The gain matrix is
K=[0 2.3e6 5e8 0 8e6]
We arrived at this value of the K, matrix by trial and error, adjusting the gain for derivatives of X1, Y1 and
integral of Y1, as previously mentioned.

CONTROLLED SUSPENSION SYSTEM MODEL:

SUB-SYSTEM BLOCK (SUSPENSION MODEL):

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CONTROLLED RESPONSE:

CONCLUSION:
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From the final plot we see that the percent overshoot and settling time requirements are satisfied i.e overshoot is within 5% of
the amplitude and setting time is 2 seconds. Moreover the steady state error approaches zero as well. Therefore, we will conclude
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our feedback controlled design for the 1/4 automotive suspension system is satisfactory and given resonsable output.