H∞ control of a suspension with a magnetorheological damper

This research work presents an H-infinity controller based on a Takagi-Sugeno (T-S) fuzzy model for a two-degrees-of-freedom (2-DOF) one-quarter-vehicle semi-active suspension with a magnetorheological damper where the actuator dynamics are included in the control synthesis. These dynamics enclose nonlinear damper phenomena, avoided in many other studies, and that can improve the suspension system by means of a more accurate model. The objective is to obtain a semi-active suspension that considerably improves the passive suspension efficiency based on some frequency domain performance criteria. The advantage of having the T-S system as a reference is that each piecewise linear system can be exposed to the well-known control theory. Besides, the proposed solution is compared with the recent reported work to highlight its advantages. A case of study is included and simulation work supports the results. The methodology applied herein can be extended to a half-vehicle model, and to the four wheels to have a global chassis control in order to maximise passenger comfort and vehicle stability.