Enhancement of Occupant Ride Comfort by GA Optimized PID Control Active Suspension System

The main objective of this work is to enhance the occupant ride comfort. Ride comfort is quantified in terms of measuring distinct accelerations like sprung mass, seat and occupant head. For this theoretical evaluation, a 7- degrees of freedom (DOF) human-vehicle-road model was established and the system investigation was limited to vertical motion. Besides, this work also focused to guarantee other vehicle performance indices like suspension working space and tire deflection. A proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller was introduced in the vehicle model and optimized with the aid of the genetic algorithm (GA). Actuator dynamics is incorporated into the system. The objective function for PID optimization was carried out using root mean square error (RMSE) concept. The severity of various suspension indices and biomechanics responses of the developed model under proposed approach were theoretically analyzed using various road profiles and compared with conventional passive system. Furthermore, this work discussed the seat to head transmissibility ratio (STH) response to examine the severity of whole-body vibration (WBV). Subsequently, the respective performance measures were statistically analyzed using root mean square (RMS) method. The result inferred that the GA-based optimized PID controller enhanced the occupant ride comfort at significant frequencies with guaranteed vehicle stability.