Development and optimization of an energy-regenerative suspension system under stochastic road excitation

In this paper a vehicle suspension system with energy harvesting capability is developed, and an analytical methodology for the optimal design of the system is proposed. The optimization technique provides design guidelines for determining the stiffness and damping coefficients aimed at the optimal performance in terms of ride comfort and energy regeneration. The corresponding performance metrics are selected as root-mean-square (RMS) of sprung mass acceleration and expectation of generated power. The actual road roughness is considered as the stochastic excitation defined by ISO 8608:1995 standard road profiles and used in deriving the optimization method. An electronic circuit is proposed to provide variable damping in the real-time based on the optimization rule. A test-bed is utilized and the experiments under different driving conditions are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. The test results suggest that the analytical approach is credible in determining the optimality of system performance.