Ride comfort performance of electric vehicle conversion with active suspension system

This paper presents the investigation on the performance of active suspension system in the electric vehicle (EV) conversion, controlled by the stability augmentation system algorithm [9] and a newly proposed SAS-Skyhook algorithm. The evaluations were done using a validated 7-degrees-freedom (7DOF) of vehicle's ride model. The mathematical modelling of the vehicle model is described. A worst case scenario of random road profiles was considered to evaluate the performance of the active suspension system. The method of subjecting the random road profiles input is also described. It was found that in general, the active suspension improved the EV conversion's ride comfort performance significantly, compared to the passive suspension system. In terms of the comparison between the active suspension system controlled by the SAS and SAS-Skyhook algorithms, the ride comfort performance provided by the SAS-Skyhook algorithm is the most significant.