A Linear Variable Parameter Observer-Based Road Profile Height Estimation for Suspension Nonlinear Dynamics Improvements

The accuracy of road profile height estimation has a significant impact on suspension control quality, which in turn influences handling, stability of vehicle motion and occupants’ comfort. Based on our previous published work, this article designs and proposes a novel method for road profile estimation that is based on suspension nonlinear dynamics. The proposed approach first establishes the road profile height estimation model considering a real suspension design, including nonlinear characteristics of the shock absorber, bushing stiffness and damping, actual geometry of the control arms, and positioning of absorber. Unlike the conventional sprung-unsprung mass model, the real nonlinear suspension model provides much higher output prediction accuracy as computational and experimental results demonstrated. Moreover, the established estimation method and model require only two easily measurable parameters, which are the acceleration of the sprung mass and the travel of the shock absorber. While considering nonlinearity and hysteretic characteristics of the damping force, the proposed approach is based on the estimation framework of linear parameter-varying systems and establishes a sliding mode observer for estimating the road profile height. The stability of estimation error dynamics of the observer is guaranteed by the Lyapunov stability analysis. As bench-test experiments of a hardware implementation of the suspension-wheel unit validated the computational results. The tests demonstrated that the proposed method allows for real-time estimating of the road profile height in different road conditions and electric currents of the suspension damper and is robust to uncertainty of the payload.