Higher order sliding mode control for active suspension systems subject to actuator faults and disturbances

As the possibility of faults in active suspension actuators are higher and more severe compared to other components, this study presents a fault-tolerant control approach based on the second-order sliding mode control method. The aim of the controller is to improve riding comfort, guarantee handling stability, and provide adequate suspension stroke in the presence of disturbances and actuator faults. A nonlinear full-vehicle suspension system and hydraulic actuator with nonlinear characteristics are adopted for accurate control. Firstly, a nonlinear sliding manifold based on a nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode controller is introduced to suppress the sprung mass heave, pitch, and roll motions arising from road disturbances. Secondly, a second-order sliding mode-based super twisting controller is utilized to track the desired forces generated by the nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode controller with actuator faults and uncertainties. The controllers are robust against disturbances, uncertainties, and faults. Moreover, the stability of the super twisting controller is proved by the strong Lyapunov functions. Finally, numerical simulations are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness of the controller. Four different conditions, random road profile, bump road excitation, single-wheel bump excitation, and partial faults are considered. The main contributions of this study are: (1) combination of the above algorithms to deal with actuator faults and improve active suspension performance; (2) the controller proposed in this study has a simple structure. Simulation results indicate that the nonsingular fast terminal sliding mode super twisting controller can guarantee the performance of the closed-loop system under both faulty and healthy conditions.