DSP based control of chassis systems

This paper describes variable damper based vehicle suspension and engine vibration control systems. The suspension control was implemented on a 1992 Cadillac Seville-STS. The system controller uses a Texas Instruments (TI) TMS320 DSP as the main algorithm processor along with a Motorola 68HC11 I/O processor. Portions of the control system were developed using the MathWorks' Simulink and a TI TMS32C40 based dSPACE controller. The engine vibration control is implemented on Motorola's DSP56166 incorporated as part of an automotive development controller. Practical issues such as control loop time constraints, finite word effects in 16 bits and fixed point versus floating point processors are presented. In addition, the control laws for both suspension and engine vibration control are described. Simulation results are compared to empirical data with similarities and deviations analyzed, correlated, and explained.