Study on the Ride Performance of a Semi-Active Air Suspension Vehicle under Complex Models Based on Co-Simulation

In most cases, researches on the ride performance of air suspension system are based on simplified mathematical models which could be too theoretical or not be able to consider the coupling relationship between the various components so that they behave far away from the actual vehicle system. This paper represents the study on the ride performance of an air suspension vehicle based on the accurate complex whole vehicle model which was established though ADAMS and Matlab. The applying of flexible components helped to improve the model accuracy. The stretching and compression test results of the air spring were used to establish the interconnected four-gasbag air suspension system. The vehicle ride performance was studied through the co-simulation between ADAMS and Matlab. The accuracy of the results were verified by the vehicle test results, which demonstrated the reliability of the whole model. On the basis of that, a strategy of adjusting the air spring force was developed according to the fuzzy adaptive PID control method to improve the vehicle riding performance. Simulation result shows that the model was accurate and the control strategy was effective. The solving time needed was acceptable. The co-simulation method makes it possible and easy to obtain an accurate model and solve the problem in an effective way.