Integrated Comfort-Adaptive Cruise and Semi-Active Suspension Control for an Autonomous Vehicle: An LPV Approach

• Main Authors: Gia Quoc Bao Tran, Thanh-Phong Pham, Olivier Sename, Eduarda Costa, Péter Gáspár
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2021-03-01
• Series: Electronics
• Subjects: autonomous vehicle; advanced driver-assistance system; LPV approach; robust control; cruise control; semi-active suspension control
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/10/7/813

This paper presents an integrated linear parameter-varying (LPV) control approach of an autonomous vehicle with an objective to guarantee driving comfort, consisting of cruise and semi-active suspension control. First, the vehicle longitudinal and vertical dynamics (equipped with a semi-active suspension system) are presented and written into LPV state-space representations. The reference speed is calculated online from the estimated road type and the desired comfort level (characterized by the frequency weighted vertical acceleration defined in the ISO 2631 norm) using<br>precomputed polynomial functions. Then, concerning cruise control, an LPV <em>H₂</em> controller using a linear matrix inequality (LMI) based polytopic approach combined with the compensation of the estimated disturbance forces is developed to track the comfort-oriented reference speed. To further enhance passengers’ comfort, a decentralized LPV <em>H₂</em> controller for the semi-active suspension system is proposed, minimizing the effect of the road profile variations. The interaction with cruise control is achieved by the vehicle’s actual speed being a scheduling parameter for suspension control. To assess the strategy’s performance, simulations are conducted using a realistic nonlinear vehicle model validated from experimental data. The simulation results demonstrate the proposed approach’s capability to improve driving comfort.