Adaptive Semi-Active Suspension Design Considering Cloud-based Road Information

Abstract Adaptive suspension control considering passenger comfort and stability of the vehicle has been researched intensively, thus several automotive companies already apply these technologies in their high-end models. Most of these systems react on the instantaneous effects of road irregularities, however, some expensive camera-based systems adapting the suspension in coherence with upcoming road conditions has already been introduced. Thereby, using oncoming road information the performance of adaptive suspension systems can be enhanced significantly. The emerging technology of cloud computing enables several promising features for road vehicles, one of which may be the implementation of an adaptive look-ahead suspension system using historic road information gathered in the cloud database. The main novelty of the paper is the developed semi-active suspension control method in which Vehicle-to-Cloud-to-Vehicle (V2C2V) technology serves as the basis for the look-ahead road adaptation capabilities of the suspension system. The operation of the presented system is validated by a real data simulation in TruckSim simulation environment.