Improving Ride Comfort in Heavy-Duty Vehicles Through Performance-Guaranteed Control of Active Seat Suspension

To enhance riding comfort for drivers of heavy-duty vehicles, this paper introduces a novel adaptive prescribed performance control (APPC) for active seat suspension systems. The model incorporates dynamic friction and hysteresis damping effects to capture the complex behavior of the seat suspension. The accuracy of the proposed model is validated through experimental data. The controller utilizes a prescribed performance function (PPF) to regulate the dynamic response of the system, combined with an adaptive backstepping control (ABC) method to account for system uncertainties, such as variations in driver weight, friction, suspension stiffness, and damping coefficients. A set of parameter estimators, governed by innovative adaptive laws, compensates for estimation errors. Furthermore, the stability of the controlled system is rigorously demonstrated. Both simulation and experimental tests, including bump and random excitation tests, are conducted to assess the controller performance in both time and frequency domains. The results confirm that the proposed controller effectively mitigates vibrations in the driver–seat system and demonstrates robustness against system uncertainties.