Development of a heavy truck semi-active suspension control

The article describes the control design, the development process and the overall performance of a semi-active suspension control for a heavy truck. The control software is developed, debugged and preliminarily tuned within a dedicated Matlab/Simulink environment, in time and frequency domain, utilising a simplified vehicle model. After a preliminary virtual evaluation, the system performance is then tested on a real prototype truck, owing to the rapid prototyping technique application. A fine tuning of the system is realised through of an experimental test activity focused both on the comfort and the handling behaviour of the vehicle.