DESIGN OF ACTIVE SUSPENSIONS

This paper describes the studies and experiments carried out at Alfa Romeo to find the most suitable types of regulations and the relevant problems in the design of active suspensions. Two possible solutions, one with comfort as its primary aim, the other attitude control, have been considered; in the secondary aims, both regulations behave passively, but gain considerable indirect advantages. When our primary aim is attitude control, special care should be payed to stabilize the vehicle response. The advantages for the performance of suspensions are obviously greater if we consider a regulation with the joint aim of attitude control and comfort. We have equipped a car with an active suspension scheme sufficiently flexible and general for studies and experiments on various types of solution; mathematical models for operation simulation under handling and road excitation have been developed. Substantially, attitude regulation only was surveyed (with satisfactory results); obviously, future developments will aim at a possible combined comfort-attitude regulation.