The problem considered in this paper is the design and analysis of control strategies for semiactive suspensions in road vehicles. The most commonly used control algorithm is the well-known sky-hook (SH) damping. Recently, a new control approach named acceleration driven damping (ADD) has been developed, using optimal-control theory. It has been shown that SH and ADD have complementary characteristics: SH provides large benefits around the body resonance; otherwise performs similarly to a passive suspension; instead, ADD provides large benefits beyond the body resonance. The first goal of this paper is to show that—in their specific frequency domains—SH and ADD provide quasi-optimal performances, namely, that it is impossible to achieve (with the same semi-active shock-absorber) better performances. This result has been obtained using the framework of the optimal predictive control, assuming full knowledge of the disturbance. This result is very interesting since it provides a lower-bound to semi-active suspension performances. The second goal of the paper is to develop a control algorithm which is able to mix the SH and ADD performances. This algorithm is surprisingly simple and provides quasi-optimal performances.

In this paper, an overview and a benchmark of some semi-active suspension control strategy performances is proposed. Based on a recent result of the authors, where the optimal semi-active performance trade-off was addressed, here, a complete benchmark to evaluate any controlled semi-active suspensions is proposed, and applied on different control approaches. The present paper aims at providing a picture -as complete as possible -of the present state of the art in the semi-active suspension control field in terms of comfort and road-holding performance evaluation and trade-off.

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