Decentralized Compliance Control for Multi-Axle Heavy Vehicles Equipped with Electro-Hydraulic Actuator Suspension Systems

This article introduces a novel decentralized compliance control technique designed to manage the behavior of multi-axle heavy vehicles equipped with electro-hydraulic actuator suspension systems on uneven terrains. To address the challenges of controller design complexity and network communication burden in large-scale active suspension systems for multi-axle heavy vehicles, the decentralized scheme proposed in this paper decomposes the overall vehicle control problem into decentralized compliance control tasks for multiple electro-hydraulic actuator suspension subsystems (MEHASS), each responding to road disturbances. The position-based compliance control strategy consists of an outer-loop generalized impedance controller (GIC) and an inner-loop position controller. The GIC, which offers explicit force-tracking performance, is employed to define the dynamic interaction between each wheel and the uneven road surface, thereby generating the vertical trajectory for the MEHASS. This design effectively reduces vertical vibration transmission to the vehicle chassis, improving ride comfort. To handle external disturbances and enhance control accuracy, the position control employs a nonsingular fast integral terminal sliding mode controller. Furthermore, a three-axle heavy vehicle prototype with electro-hydraulic actuator suspension is developed for on-road driving experiments. The effectiveness of the proposed control method in enhancing ride comfort is demonstrated through comparative experiments.