Vehicle Suspension Road Preview Control
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current semi-active and active suspension systems in vehicles cannot react quickly enough to all road inputs, leading to compromises in control or increased damping, which affects the vehicle's ride quality.
Innovation Solution
A system that uses sensors to generate data on road conditions, processes this data to determine a continuous road profile, and selectively controls suspension elements based on this profile to improve ride quality.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If higher damping is used to account for high load events, then the suspension system can handle road inputs, but the ride quality deteriorates due to excessive damping
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses road sensors to detect upcoming road conditions in advance and pre-adjusts the suspension damping coefficients before the vehicle encounters the road inputs. This allows the suspension to be optimally prepared for high load events without requiring continuously high damping, thereby maintaining ride quality while handling road inputs effectively.
Solution Approach 2:
The suspension system dynamically adjusts damping coefficients in real-time based on predicted road conditions and current vehicle state. The control system continuously modifies suspension parameters to match actual road inputs, replacing static high damping with adaptive damping that provides necessary support only when needed.
2Ease of operation
If the suspension system reacts to all road inputs, then ride quality improves, but the system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
Road sensors positioned ahead of the vehicle capture road profile data in advance. The control system processes this preliminary information to predict upcoming road inputs and pre-configures suspension parameters, reducing the need for complex real-time reaction systems while maintaining comprehensive road input response.
Solution Approach 2:
The system introduces an intermediate road sensing and prediction layer between the road inputs and the suspension actuators. This intermediary processing layer simplifies the control architecture by pre-processing road information and generating optimized control commands, reducing the computational burden on the real-time suspension control system.
3Reliability
If real-time control is implemented, then the ability to respond to road inputs improves, but the response time required increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary road condition assessment using forward-looking sensors and pre-calculates optimal suspension parameters before the vehicle reaches the road features. This advance preparation eliminates much of the real-time response delay, allowing the suspension to react instantaneously or near-instantaneously when the vehicle encounters the predicted road inputs.
Solution Approach 2:
The control system segments the road profile into discrete features and processes each segment independently with pre-computed parameters. This segmentation allows parallel processing of different road sections and reduces the computational time required for real-time control decisions, improving overall response speed.
Data Source
AI summary
Methods and systems are provided for controlling a suspension system of a vehicle. In one embodiment, the method includes: receiving, by a processor, sensor data indicative of conditions of a roadway in a path of the vehicle; determining, by a processor, a continuous road profile based on the sensor data; and selectively controlling, by a processor, at least one suspension element of the vehicle based on the continuous road profile.