Adaptive soft computing paradigm for a full-car active suspension system with driver biodynamic vibration damping control

In the current car automobile industry, vehicle ride comfort is the most important design aspect due to its direct effect on the health and efficiency of human beings. The available literature on vehicle active suspension systems to improve vehicle performance (ride comfort, handling, road holding and suspension deflection, etc.) is somewhat sparse, and there is a major lack of research on seated driver biodynamic comfort analysis and enhancement. In this paper, a nonlinear full-car active suspension system with seated driver biodynamics [19 degrees of freedom (DoF)] model is presented. The effects of biodynamic vibrations on different parts of the driver’s body are examined. A NeuroFuzzy adaptive control paradigm is applied to the full-car active suspension system to damp the vehicle low-frequency vibrations, which can cause health problems and fatigue, resulting in fatal accidents. The effectiveness of the proposed control strategy to damp vehicle low-frequency and biodynamic vibrations is validated by comparing the performance with conventional (passive) and PID-controlled suspension systems.