A Review on PID Control System Simulation of the Active Suspension System of a Quarter Car Model While Hitting Road Bumps

In recent years, car industry experts and designers have given more attention to ensuring the safety and comfort of the car and its passengers while traveling on harsh road surfaces. This paper defines a simulation approach for a quarter vehicle model with an active suspension system using the SIMULINK environment in MATLAB software. The first aim is to implement the correct control system for an active suspension system of a vehicle and a take closer look at the hydraulic cylinder and servo valve concept details and its closed-loop control system. And the second aim is to gain both ride comfort and reliable road-holding by correctly tunning the PID parameters for an active suspension system to reduce the vehicle body displacement and acceleration. Furthermore, the hydraulic pressure, hydraulic force, and total transmitted force to the vehicle body are compared for active and passive suspension systems when the car hits continuous sinusoidal and random irregular bumps. The control system is tuned via a PID controller using the Ziegler–Nichols method via the Control System Designer app to achieve the desired comfort traveling of passengers and reliable ride-holding of the car. For an active suspension system, the simulation results showed that the car’s body displacement and acceleration have lower amplitude compared to the passive suspension case. Hence, active suspensions can provide the passengers more riding comfort and better road-holding while traveling over harsh street surfaces for the manufacturers. © 2022, The Institution of Engineers (India).