Attitude Tracking Control of All-Terrain Vehicle with Tandem Active–Passive Suspension

When vehicles with traditional passive suspension systems are driving on complex pavement, the large vibration of the body will result in relatively negative effects on ride comfort, vehicle handling, and stability of passengers and goods. Body attitude tracking control based on tandem active–passive suspension can improve vehicle attitude stability and passability by enabling the body attitude to track an ideal position. In addition, the performance limitations of the actuator are considered in the design of the attitude tracking control algorithms. The attitude tracking performances are investigated in both simulations and real car tests. Two control algorithms which adopt linear quadratic regulator (LQR) and model predictive control (MPC) algorithms, are compared and analyzed in terms of theory and control performance. The simulations and real car tests results show that both attitude tracking control algorithms can effectively track the ideal body attitude with acceptable errors under different pavements, and the control effect of MPC is slightly better than that of LQR. In this way, attitude tracking of car body shows a lot of potential when a vehicle is in harsh environments.