Control System for Single Wheel Station Heavy Tracked Vehicle Active Electromagnetic Suspension

Researchers at The University of Texas Center for Electromechanics recently completed design, fabrication, and preliminary testing of an Electromagnetic Active Suspension System (EMASS). The EMASS program was sponsored by the United States Army Tank Automotive and Armaments Command Center (TACOM) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). A full scale, single wheel mockup of an M1 tank suspension was chosen for evaluating the EMASS concept. The specific goal of the program was to increase suspension performance so that cross-country terrain could be negotiated at speeds up to 17.9 m/s (40 mph) without subjecting vehicle occupants to greater than 0.5 gee rms.

This paper is a companion paper to a previous SAE publication [1] that developed suspension theory and control approaches. This paper focuses on hardware implementation, software implementation, and experimental results.