Application of a Sliding Mode Control Solution to Control the Active Suspension System Equipped with Hydraulic Actuator

The content of this article aims to use the solution to control an automobile’s suspension system. A dynamic model is built to describe the automobile’s oscillations with five state variables. The SMC (Sliding Mode Control) solution with the high-order derivative of output signals is utilized in order to direct the hydraulic actuator equipped with an active suspension. Numerical simulation is performed with two specific cases. In each case, 3 situations are evaluated. The input parameters are the excitation signals from the road, and the output parameters include the sprung mass’s vertical displacement and vertical acceleration. In the first case, the mean and maximum displacement values for the automobile utilizing an active suspension directed by a SMC solution are only 15.59% and 16.83%, compared to the car using a typical system. In the other case, this average displacement value is only 14.14%. Besides, the vertical acceleration of a car is also strongly declined once the SMC algorithm is utilized. As a result, the comfort and smoothness of a vehicle have increased considerably. The SMC method should be combined with other methods to advance the controller’s quality for the suspension system.