FxLMS Control of an Off-Road Vehicle Model with Magnetorheological Dampers

The paper presents a study on adaptive vibration control applied in a semi-active vehicle suspension. The simulation-based analysis is dedicated to laboratory tests conducted for an experimental all-terrain vehicle subjected to mechanical exciters emulating road-induced vibration. The implemented simulation environment consists of a full-car model which exhibits seven degrees of freedom (7 DoFs), equipped with magnetorheological dampers. The MR damper model based on hyperbolic tangent function was included in the vehicle model. The front wheels of the model were subjected to sinusoidal excitation with constant frequency within the range 0.5–25 Hz. The FxLMS (Filtered-x Least Mean Squares) algorithm is adopted and used for controlling the MR dampers where the vertical velocity of excitation is assumed as a reference signal of the control algorithm. The goal of the algorithm is to attenuate vertical velocity of the front middle vehicle body part. The proposed FxLMS was compared to passive suspension controlled with constant control current and Skyhook algorithm. Comparison of different suspension configurations based on transmissibility characteristics and quality indices confirm usefulness of FxLMS with respect to vibration control, suspension deflection and adaptability features.