Performance Enhancement of Vehicle Mechatronic Inertial Suspension, Employing a Bridge Electrical Network

Inerters, a new type of mass element, have been successfully applied in various fields, such as in automotive and civil engineering. The development of a new element, named a mechatronic inerter, which consists of a ball-screw inerter and permanent magnet electric machinery, proves the feasibility of adopting electrical element impedances to simulate corresponding mechanical elements. In this paper, the structures of the bridge electrical network and series-parallel electrical network and their impedance characteristics are first introduced. Then, a seven-degree-of-freedom vehicle model is established. In addition, by comparison with passive suspension, a bridge network and a series-parallel network with various basic topologies are used to improve the vibration isolation performance of mechatronic inertial suspension, and the advantages of the bridge network (a) are demonstrated. Finally, a bridge electrical network (a) was designed and a real vehicle test was carried out. The test results showed that the mechatronic inertial suspension based on the bridge network (a) was superior to the passive suspension; the RMS (root-mean-square) values of the suspension working space and dynamic tire load of the left rear wheel suspension were reduced by 21.1% and 6.3%, respectively; and the RMS value of the centroid acceleration was improved by 1.8%.