Simulation research on an active anti-roll system for an air spring passenger car

To reduce the roll movement of an air spring passenger car, an active anti-roll system is developed, which is constructed with hydraulic and pneumatic units to change spring rate during cornering. For the comparing research between the passive and active system, a two-track vehicle model and a co-simulation model of air spring system are built. For the simulation research on the linear movement of the actuator, a mathematical model is considered as dynamical subsystem in the co-simulation model. To active control the roll angle of vehicle body, a sliding-mode controller with optimized control parameters for the test vehicle is introduced into the model. The characteristics of sliding-mode controller is discussed and the validation of active antiroll control is proved by comparison with other control methods. The results show that the roll angle of air spring vehicle is reduced obviously with the active anti-roll actuator in comparison with that of the passive system. Compared with other control methods, sliding-mode controller has an advantage of shortest switching times, which leads to a longer lifetime of actuator and valves.