Study on Independent Tuning Damping Characteristic by Coupling of Electromagnetic Dampers for Automobiles 2015-01-0044

Methods for motion control with a coupled suspension systems of automobile have been proposed and their effectiveness has been shown by the previous studies. However, it is not easy to couple hydraulic dampers because it requires designing and manufacturing complex pipelines. Recently, the electromagnetic damper, which is composed of an electric motor, a ball screw, and a nut, was proposed. The electromagnetic damper has high responsiveness, controllability, and energy saving performance, and it has been reported they improved ride comfort and drivability. The electromagnetic damper has various function depending on the electric circuit connected to its electric motor and can be connected to each other more easily than that by hydraulic dampers. Therefore, the authors have focused on the connectivity of the electromagnetic damper, and have proposed to use electromagnetic damper for the coupled system, which enabled the characteristics of translational and rotational motion of a vehicle to be tuned independently. In the previous study, the effectiveness of the proposed coupled damper was verified by numerical simulations using a half car model. However, the effectiveness has not been verified by a real car or an experimental setup representing an automobile. Therefore, this paper verifies the effectiveness of the proposed coupled damper by comparing the experimental results with the theoretical values, using an experimental setup representing an automobile. The results indicate the proposed system is effective and valid.