Modeling, diagnosis and estimation of actuator faults in vehicle suspensions

• An experimental validation of fault detection algorithms for semi-active dampers.
• Experimental faulty damper model for car suspensions with statistical validation.
• A multiplicative fault model of a damper useful to design model-based FDI methods.

This paper deals with the modeling, diagnosis and estimation of faults in automotive Semi-Active (SA) dampers, particularly oil leakages in the actuator. An experimental multiplicative fault model is proposed and statistically validated with an index error of 15% for damper leakage. The fault model is used as design basis for two Fault Detection and Isolation (FDI) frameworks. The Frequency-based Fault Estimator (FFE) is based on the effect of the damper fault in the frequency domain and the Robust Parity Space (RPS) consists in a residual generator sensitive to the fault in the time domain. The model-based FDI systems were experimentally validated in a 1:5 scaled vehicle, fully instrumented and equipped with SA dampers. The experimental results show that, while both approaches represent suitable options for commercial applications, the RPS estimator has the fastest detection time and proportionality to the fault level. In addition, the RPS approach has better robustness to vehicle mass uncertainties. On the other hand, the FFE presents lower sensitivity to road profile and semi-active damper input variations. Additionally, this estimator requires a lower number of sensors and has a lower computational overhead.