Optimal Damping Matching of Semi-Active Air Suspension Based on Vehicle Comfort and Handling

Many vehicles have been equipped with air springs as elastic elements to get better performance in comfort, but absorbers may not work in an optimal state due to the variation of suspension stiffness. While the function of semi-active suspension is to enable the absorber damping to be adjusted according to different road roughness levels and to coordinate between comfort and handling. To solve the problem of matching the damping coefficient of variable stiffness suspensions represented by air springs, this paper proposed a method for calculating the optimal damping ratio of a semi-active suspension system in real-time with sprung mass acceleration and dynamic tire load to establish the objective function and suspension dynamic deflection as the constraint to reflect the unification of comfort and handling. The effectiveness of the proposed damping calculated method is validated by comparing it with classical methods including passive suspension and shy-hook control on straight roads with different road roughness.