Preview-based control of suspension systems for commercial vehicles

An active suspension with preview is developed for the rear axle of a comme rcial vehicle. The obtained improvements are promising and justify further investigation of the more feasible semi active suspensions with preview. Th e inherent non-linearity of semi-active suspensions with switching shock ab sorbers and the need for controllers that can handle a broad class of contr ol objectives has led to the development of several numerical control metho ds for both multi-level and continuously variable shock absorbers. The most promising control method and shock absorber type are selected and mounted in a test vehicle. Some first experimental results are discussed.