Novel Semi-active Suspension Design Based on Decoupling Skyhook Control

A semi-active suspension design based on the traditional method of skyhook control is not capable of effectively controlling the attitude of the vehicle. However, an innovative approach called decoupling skyhook control allows the attitude of the vehicle body and its vibration characteristics to be effectively controlled. In this paper, a new decoupling skyhook controller for semi-active suspension is presented. Vehicle body motions in the three directions of vertical, pitch, and roll have been adopted to develop three skyhook controllers and directly control the vehicle body attitude. Furthermore, three orientation skyhook control forces are converted into actual damping forces of four adjustable dampers through the input decoupling transformation. The simulation results show that the developed controller is more effective than the traditional skyhook control in improving ride comfort.