Model-Based Design of an Active Suspension for the Improvement of In-Wheel Motor Drive Electric Vehicle

Abstract

This paper presents an advanced vertical control system using active suspension to stabilize the vertical motion of an in-wheel motor-driven electric vehicle. The design of the control system and conceptualization were carried out by mathematical modeling with integration with the quarter car model. A novel active suspension is developed through the model-based design to control the vehicles to move smoothly and continuously. Even though experimental validation is an effective and more accurate method to evaluate the control system, it is important to reduce the dependency on physical testing. Thus, a reliable simulation framework would be beneficial in the vehicle development process. In this paper, the hydraulic system is designed and simulated by using the Simcenter Amesim. For the dynamic vibration absorber, we are seeking to design a skyhook control to control the damping force by an electric damper, whereas the spring stiffness can be switched by opening and closing the fluid passage to the gas chamber. In the spring stiffness control, the stiff suspension can reach a ratio of 1.3 compared to the soft suspension. The objective of this research work was realized with the proposed simulation framework to test the effectiveness of suspension control system to improve ride and handling in a four in-wheel motor-driven electric vehicle.

Keywords

• In-wheel motor technology
• model-based design
• active suspension
• vehicle vertical control
• skyhook control
• dynamic vibration absorber