Preview-based techniques for vehicle suspension control: a state-of-the-art review

Automotive suspension systems are key to ride comfort and handling performance enhancement. In the last decades semi-active and active suspension configurations have been the focus of intensive automotive engineering research, and have been implemented by the industry. The recent advances in road profile measurement and estimation systems make road-preview-based suspension control a viable solution for production vehicles. Despite the availability of a significant body of papers on the topic, the literature lacks a comprehensive and up-to-date survey on the variety of proposed techniques for suspension control with road preview, and the comparison of their effectiveness. To cover the gap, this literature review deals with the research conducted over the past decades on the topic of semi-active and active suspension controllers with road preview. The main formulations are reported for each control category, and the respective features are critically analysed, together with the most relevant performance indicators. The paper also discusses the effect of the road preview time on the resulting system performance, and identifies control development trends.