ABSTRACT
This study presents the development of a non-linear control strategy for semi-active suspensions based Magnetorheological (MR) dampers for improving the vertical ride quality of the railway vehicle using gain-scheduling control. The aim of the research is to overcome the constraints of the conventional linear control strategies and improve the semi-active suspensions to achieve the performance close to that of the full active control. The proposed design of the control strategy is focused on minimising the use of the minimum damper setting by using gain-scheduling control. The gain-scheduling controller is used to generate the desired damping forces that achieve a condition that keeps the dampers in the normal working range of the dampers as much as possible. Numerical simulation for semi-active secondary suspension cases is given to show the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed control strategy.
