35

Active suspension of truck seat

Masaaki Kawana and Taro Shimogo the dynamic response. Shinjo [20] examined transient
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kanagawa riding comfort for heavy duty trucks, and Volfson [23]
Institute of Technology, 1030 Shimo-ogino, Atsugi, carried out simulations of the seat dynamics of off-
Kanagawa 243-02, Japan road vehicles. Huston et al. [5] performed field mea-
Tel.: +81 462 41 1211; Fax: +81 462 42 0846; surements of seat vibrations, and Gu [4] measured vi-
E-mail: shimogo@me.kanagawa-it.ac.jp bration transmissibility using a mass dummy, Lewis
and Griffin [9] also studied vibration transmissibility
of a car seat with a suspended back-rest.
The driver’s seat of a heavy duty truck is usually mounted The second group is concerned with the isolation
on a spring–damper assembly anchored to the cab floor. To
of seat vibration, and this group is further divided into
improve riding comfort, this study investigated the effects
3 groups; the passive suspension, the semi-active sus-
of mounting a computer-controlled actuator in parallel with
the traditional spring–damper assembly. A dynamic model pension, and the full-active suspension. The passive
of the seat is represented by a two degree-of-freedom sys- suspension, composed of spring–damper assemblies,
tem, including a cushion. In this paper, a control system has been analyzed by Gouw et al. [3] in their study of
is designed, using optimal control theory, which minimizes driver comfort and safety in off-highway vehicles us-
rms vertical acceleration at a point representing the driver’s ing optimal seat suspensions. Sankar and Afonso [14]
hip point. In this system, accelerations of the hip point, the promoted design and testing for lateral seat suspen-
seat frame and the cab floor are picked up and integrated sion of off-road vehicles.
to obtain the state variables to be fed back and fed forward The semi-active suspension, in which suspension
to the actuator through a digital computer. The actuator is parameters are adaptively shifted, Ranganathan and
constructed with electric servo-motor and ball-screw mech-
Sriram [12] designed a PC-based software for off-road
anism. The experimental study was carried out on a shaker,
which simulates the vibrations of the cab floor in actual ser-
vehicle seat suspensions, and Amirouche et al. [1]
vice. Results were obtained for both a dummy and a real worked out an optimal driver seat suspension design
human body. The vibration test produced rms accelerations for heavy trucks and heavy vehicle systems.
of the seat and the hip point of about 1.0 m/s2 without As for the full-active suspension, McCormac et al.
the actuator, while the rms accelerations were suppressed to [10] developed a dual-axis active seat suspension sys-
about 0.5 m/s2 at a rms input voltage to the servo-motor tem using an electro-hydraulic actuator, and Stein and
of 1.0 V. Ballo [21] developed a driver’s active seat suspen-
sion for off-road vehicles using an electro-hydraulic
actuator. Johnson [7] developed an active seat sus-
1. Introduction pension to control low back injuries using an electro-
hydraulic actuator. Stein [22] investigated an active
Freight shipment by heavy duty truck is becoming vibration control system for a driver’s seat using an
more common recently, with longer distances and long electro-pneumatic actuator, and Ballo [2] examined
transit times contributing to corresponding increases the power requirements of an active vibration control
in driver’s fatigue and driver’s fatigue related acci- system using an electro-pneumatic actuator. Ballo’s
dents. As a result, improvement of the riding com- results were discussed by Ryba [13]. Shimogo and his
fort of the driver’s seat is seen as an important step team [15–19] developed active suspension systems for
in improving safety, and driver performance. Many heavy duty truck seats using an electric servo-motor.
studies on car seat vibration have been published to In the case of the heavy duty truck, the driver’s
date; these studies are classified into 2 groups. seat is usually supported by a spring–damper assem-
The first group is concerned with the measurement bly connected to the cab floor. The cab-floor vibra-
and/or analysis of seat vibration. For example, Pope tion has a relatively wide band width with a dominant
et al. [11] studied the effects of various cushions on frequency of 2.2 Hz. Although the general floor vi-

Shock and Vibration 5 (1998) 35–41

ISSN 1070-9622 / $8.00  1998, IOS Press. All rights reserved
36 M. Kawana and T. Shimogo / Active suspension of truck seat

bration is effectively isolated by this suspension, the

frequency component centered around 2 to 3 Hz is not
so well damped. In the typical design procedure of a
vibration isolator, the natural frequency of the suspen-
sion should be in a lower frequency region than the
dominant frequency of the disturbance. However, it
is difficult to attain a very low disturbance frequency,
say 2.2 Hz, due to the stroke limitation of the suspen-
sion. In the seat suspension discussed in this study,
the natural frequency of the seat, including driver’s
mass, is 2.6 Hz, which was selected to be lower than
the natural frequency of 5.4 Hz of the driver’s mass Fig. 1. Control system.
on the seat cushion. Although the 5.4 Hz component
is suppressed by this spring–damper suspension, it is
difficult to suppress the 2–3 Hz components by the
spring–damper suspension alone. According to the
ISO2631-1:85, the 4–8 Hz component is most impor-
tant to improve the ride comfort of the seat. However,
the 2–3 Hz components also play a negative role and
effect riding comfort. To suppress the 2–3 Hz com-
ponents, an active suspension, in which an actuator
is installed in parallel to the spring–damper assem-
bly, is necessary. In the full-active suspensions pro-
posed thus far, electro-hydraulic or electro-pneumatic
actuators have been most commonly studied (McCor-
mac et al. [10]; Stein and Ballo [21]; Johnson [7]; Fig. 2. Analysis model.
Stein [22]; and Ballo [2]).
In this study, an electric servomotor and ballscrew
of the driver’s seat. However, since the seat mass (in-
mechanism, installed in parallel to the spring–damper
cluding the driver’s mass) is relatively small compared
assembly, are applied to improve the riding comfort by
to that of the cab (the mass ratio is about 75/800),
damping the low frequency component of seat vibra-
the cab floor vibration is assumed to be transferred
tion. The electric servomotor system is simpler than
to the seat in the way of a cascade connection or in
the hydraulic or pneumatic actuators, and its loading
capacity and frequency range are appropriate to seat the one-way manner, that is, the seat vibration does
vibration control. The control law is introduced using not affect the cab vibration. The schematic illustra-
the optimal regulator theory on the basis of a sim- tion of the seat and the vibration control system are
plified seat structure model of the truck. In partic- shown in Fig. 1. If the flexibility of the cushion on the
ular, the feed-forward link of the cab floor vibration seat frame is taken into account, the analytical model
is provided along with the feed-back link of the seat of the seat can be represented as a two degree-of-
vibration. The control performance was evaluated by freedom system (Fig. 2), in which m1 and m2 denote
computer simulation and experimental study on the the seat frame mass and the driver’s mass, respec-
shaker table realizing actual vibrations of the cab floor tively. The friction between the driver’s body and the
for both a dummy and a real human body. seat back and the reaction between the driver’s feet
and the cab floor or between the driver’s hands and
the steering wheel are neglected in this study. The
2. Analytical model driver’s mass is corrected by separating the leg mass
from the body mass. The reduced mass of the driver
The cab of a heavy truck is usually mounted on the on the seat set is at 80% to 90% of the whole body
chassis frame, which, in turn, is mounted on the axes, mass. In this study, the typical mass of the driver is
so the coupled vibration of the whole structure should assumed to be 70 kg, so the reduced mass is 60 kg,
be considered in an analysis of the vertical vibration which is about 85.7% of the whole mass.
 M. Kawana and T. Shimogo / Active suspension of truck seat 37

3. State equations

Motion equations of the system shown in Fig. 2

are:
m1 ÿ1 = −c1 (ẏ1 − ż) − k1 (y1 − z)
− c2 (ẏ1 − ẏ2 ) − k2 (y1 − y2 ) + u,
m2 ÿ2 = −c2 (ẏ2 − ẏ1 ) − k2 (y2 − y1 ). (1) Fig. 3. Power spectral density of floor acceleration.
 
The control system shown in Fig. 1 is realized by the 0 0 1 0
 0 0 0 1 
feedback of the vertical displacements and velocities  
 k1 + k2 k2 1 + b(c + c ) c 2 
of the cushion surface y2 , ẏ2 , and the seat frame y1 , ẏ1 , 
As =  − −
1 2 ,
and by the feedforward of the floor displacement and  m1 m1 bm1 m1 
the velocity z1 , ż1 . These variables are obtained by  k2 k2 c2 c2 
− −
integrating the detected accelerations ÿ2 , ÿ1 , z̈. The m2 m2 m2 m2
actuator consists of a DC servomotor and a ballscrew h a iT
mechanism, which are installed vertically under the bs = 0 0 0 ,
bm1
seat. The relationship between the relative velocity of
the suspension and the rotation speed of the servomo-  T
k1
tor is:  0 0 0 
m1
ds = 

 .

ẏ1 − ż1 = αθ̇, (2) 1 + bc1
0 0 0
bm1
where α denotes the lead of the ballscrew. The rota- The power spectral density of the cab floor vi-
tion speed of the servomotor is expressed as a linear bration, shown in Fig. 3, was obtained from actual
function of the input voltage v and the torque T as data taken from a heavy duty truck running on Tokyo
follows: metropolitan high way. As a single peak appears in
θ̇ = a0 v − b0 T (3) the spectrum, the transfer function of the shaping fil-
ter to produce the floor vibration from the white noise
(a0 , b0 are constants of the servomotor). The relation- is approximated by the expression of the second order
ship between the torque T and the vertical force u of system:
the actuator is: s2
Gf (s) = . (8)
T = αu. (4) s2 + 2ζf ωf s + ωf2

Substituting Eqs (3) and (4) into Eq. (2), we obtain The parameters ωf and ζf are determined by curve
fitting to the actual data in the frequency domain of
ẏ1 − ż1 = av − bu, Fig. 3. The state equation of the shaping filter is
derived from the transfer function as follows:
u = −(ẏ1 − ż)/b + (a/b)v, (5)
żf = Af zf + df w, (9)
where a = a0 α, b = b0 α2 . Substituting Eq. (5) into
Eq. (1), the vertical force u is replaced by the input where
 T
voltage v. The state equation of the seat suspension zf = z ż ,
system is introduced from the motion equation, that    
is: 0 1 0
Af = , df = ,
−ωf2 −2ζf ωf 1
ẏs = As ys + bs v + ds zf , (6)
w(t) is Gaussian white noise with mean zero.
where So the state equation of the augmented system, in-
 T  T cluding the shaping filter, is obtained:
y = y1 y2 ẏ1 ẏ2 , zf = z ż , (7)
ẏ = Ay + bv + dw, (10)
38 M. Kawana and T. Shimogo / Active suspension of truck seat

Table 1
where Specification of experimental model
T  T
y = b ys zf c = y1 y2 ẏ1 ẏ2 z ż , Floor vibration model ωf = 13.82 rad/s,
ζf = 0.150
      W = 4.4 × 10−4 (m/s2 )2 /Hz
As ds bs 0
A= , b= , d= . (11) rms z̈ = 1.158 m/s2
0 Af 0 df
Seat suspension k1 = 1.960 × 104 N/m
c1 = 2.156 × 103 N s/m
Cushion k2 = 6.907 × 104 N/m
4. Optimal control law c2 = 7.247 × 102 N s/m
Seat mass m1 = 15 kg

As the control purpose is to minimize the vertical Body mass m2 = 60 kg

acceleration of the hip point on the seat under the con- Actuator ẋ1 = av − bu
straints of the relative displacement of the suspension a = −4.640 × 10−2 (m/s)V
and the input voltage to the servomotor, the criterion b = −2.026 × 10−6 (m/s)N

function is given as follows:

5. Experimental method
J = Ebq1 (y1 − z) + q2 (y2 − y1 ) +
2 2
q3 ẏ12
The experiment of the active seat suspension was
+ q4 ẏ22 + q5 y12 + q6 y22 + rv 2 c performed by mounting a real truck seat on an electro-
= E[y T Qy + rv 2 ], (12) hydraulic shaker table (max. load: 10 t, frequency
range: 0–50 Hz, max. stroke: ± 150 mm). Experi-
where ments were conducted by placing a dummy, as well
as a real human body, on the seat. The specifi-
Q = q1 cT1 c1 + q2 cT2 c2 + q3 cT3 c3 cations of the experimental system is shown in Ta-
ble 1 (actuator specification: stroke = ±37.5 mm,
+ q4 cT4 c4 + q5 cT5 c5 + q6 cT6 c6 . (13)
frequency = 0 ∼ 10.8 Hz, control force = 200 N).
Although a hysteresis due to the friction produced by
c1 = b 1 0 0 0 −1 0 c, c2 = b −1 1 0 0 0 0 c, the sliding linkage is indicated along with a nonlin-
    earity in the shock absorber, these characteristics are
c3 = 0 0 1 0 0 0 , c4 = 0 0 0 1 0 0 , linearized with the assumptions that the relative dis-
    placement amplitude is 5 mm and the velocity ampli-
c5 = 1 0 0 0 0 0 , c6 = 0 1 0 0 0 0 ,
tude is 0.3 m/s. The characteristics of the cushion
q1 , q2 , q3 , q4 , q5 , q6 and r are the weighting parameters. are separately identified in the experiment.
According to the optimal regulator theory, the op-
timal control law to minimize the criterion is :
6. Results of the experiment
v = −F y,
  If the actuator is not installed, the acceleration spec-
F = r−1 bT P = f1 f2 f3 f4 f5 f6 , (14) trum of the seat frame and the dummy hip point have a
peak value at 2 to 3 Hz as shown in Fig. 4. This peak
where P is obtained by solving the Riccati equation disappears in the controlled case as shown in Fig. 5
(weighting parameters: q1 = 105 , q2 = 0, q3 = 106 ,
P A + AT P − r−1 P bbTP + Q = 0, (15) q4 = 103 , q5 = 102 , q6 = 102 , r = 101.5 , and control
gains: f1 = 16.8429 × 103 , f2 = −18.2267 × 103 ,
as indicated in the literature, for example, by Kwak- f3 = −2.7056 × 103 , f4 = −0.2216 × 103 , f5 =
ernaak and Sivan [8]. To obtain the optimal feed- −3.7431 × 103 , f6 = −18.7855 × 103 ).
back gain F of the digital control system in the dis- Figure 6 indicates a corresponding results for real
crete time domain, the MATLAB CONTROL SYS- human body of 70 kg, similar to that of Fig. 5, be-
TEM TOOLBOX lqrd of MATHWORKS Inc. was cause the effective mass of the human body discount-
used. ing legs is nearly equal to the mass of the dummy.
 M. Kawana and T. Shimogo / Active suspension of truck seat 39

Fig. 4. Power spectral densities without actuator.

Fig. 6. Power spectral densities with actuator.

(a)

Fig. 5. Power spectral densities with actuator.

The difference over the range of 5 to 8 Hz between the

human body PSD and the dummy body PSD may be (b)
due to differences in seating conditions. The dummy
body rolled and pitched on the seat cushion during
the vibration test in spite of attempts to constrain the
dummy body neck to the seat back by a rope. In con-
trast, the human body can be seated in a stable manner
on the seat cushion. The human body itself can easily
suppress rolling and pitching, and the contact surface
between the hip and the seat cushion is considerably
softer when compared with that of the dummy body.
The trade-off plots of the acceleration of the seat (c)
frame (a), the acceleration of the hip point (b), and the Fig. 7. Trade off curve. (a) Absolute acceleration of seat; (b) Ab-
relative displacement of the suspension (c), against solute acceleration of hip point; (c) Relative displacement of sus-
the input voltage of the actuator are shown in Fig. 7. pension.
40 M. Kawana and T. Shimogo / Active suspension of truck seat

These results were obtained by varying the weighting References

parameter of the input voltage in the criterion function
(r = 101.5 to 103.5 ). If the rms input voltage is 1 V,
[1] F. Amirouche, L. Palkovics and J. Woodrooffe, Optimal
for example, the rms acceleration of the hip point is driver seat suspension design for heavy trucks, heavy vehicle
about 1 m/s2 without the actuator, while it is reduced systems, Int. J. Vehicle Design 2(1) (1995), 18–45.
to about 0.5 m/s2 with the actuator. [2] I. Ballo, Power requirement of active vibration control sys-
tems, Vehicle System Dynamics 24(9) (1995), 683–691.
[3] G.J. Gouw, S. Rakheja, S. Sankar and Y. Afework, Increased
comfort and safety of drivers of off-highway vehicles using
7. Discussion optimal seat suspension, SAE Tech. Pap., Ser. 901646, 1990,
pp. 1–9.
[4] Y. Gu, A vibration transmissibility measurement using a
Then experimental data indicate that the frequency mass dummy, SAE Tech. Pap., Ser. 960475, 1996, pp. 221–
response of the hip point around 2 to 3 Hz is sup- 231.
[5] D.R. Huston, C. Choukalos, J.P. Tranowski and J. Weisman,
pressed, and thus, the riding comfort is improved, by Field measurements of seated vibrations, SAE Tech. Pap.,
the active seat suspension proposed in this study. Ser. 960477, 1996, pp. 11–17.
Prediction of the control performance was made by [6] ISO2631-1:85, Evaluation of human exposure to whole-body
vibration, Part 1: general requirements, 1st edition, 1985-
numerical simulation using a digital computer to de-
05-15.
termine the values of the weighting parameters in the [7] C.C. Johnson, Active seat suspension to control low back
criterion function. The experimental results of control injuries, PB Rep., PB-94-158482, 1993, pp. 1–29.
performance were usually lower than the simulation [8] H. Kwakernaak and R. Sivan, Linear Optimal Control Sys-
tems, Wiley, New York, 1972.
results, because the nonlinear characteristics of the [9] C.H. Lewis and M.J. Griffin, The transmission of vibration
real system was linearized to determine the optimal to the occupants of a car seat with a suspended back-rest,
control law. Proc. I. Mech. E., part D: J. Automobile Eng. 210(3) (1996),
The feedforward link from the cab floor vibration 199–207.
[10] A.W. McCormac, R.T. Burton and J.N. Wilson, Dual-axis
to the controller is essential to suppress the seat vi- active seat suspension system, Am. Soc. Agricultural Eng.,
bration, because the cab floor vibration has a domi- Meeting Presentation, Paper No. 89-7542, 1989, pp. 1–15.
nant frequency component. The control law was de- [11] M.H. Pope, H. Broman and T. Hansson, The dynamic re-
sponse of a subject seated on various cushions, Ergonomics
termined for the augmented system by including the 32(10) (1989), 1155–1166.
shaping filter which generates the cab floor vibration, [12] R. Ranganathan and K. Sriram, Development of a PC-based
and state variables of the shaping filter are then fed software for analysis of off-road vehicle seat suspensions,
forward to the controller. SAE Tech. Pap., Ser. 941677, 1994, pp. 1–8.
[13] D. Ryba, Discussion note on the paper of I. Ballo, Vehicle
Therefore, if the real cab floor vibration spectrum System Dynamics 24(9) (1995), 693–694.
is changed from the specified spectrum used to design [14] S. Sankar and M. Afonso, Design and testing of lateral seat
the control system, the control performance may de- suspension for off-road vehicles, J. Terramechanics 30(5)
(1993), 371–393.
grade. To reduce the effects of such abnormal con- [15] T. Shimogo et al., Active suspension of truck seat, Japan
ditions, the robustness of the control system should Soc. Mech. Eng. 930(9) (1993), 116–118 (in Japanese).
be specified. However, in actuality, the cab floor vi- [16] T. Shimogo et al., Active suspension of truck seat (2nd
bration spectrum was hardly influenced by changes in report), Japan Soc. Mech. Eng. 940(10) (1994), 581–583
(in Japanese).
road conditions in the running test. For very rough [17] T. Shimogo et al., Active suspension of truck seat (3rd
road surface conditions, the actuator should be deac- report), Japan Soc. Mech. Eng. 96(15) (1996), 341–342
tivated. With the active control off, only the spring– (in Japanese).
[18] T. Shimogo et al., Active suspension of truck seat (4th
damper assembly is effective because the actuator is
report), Japan Soc. Mech. Eng. 97(1) (1997), 460–461
installed in parallel with the spring–damper assem- (in Japanese).
bly. Some resistance will remain as a result of the [19] T. Shimogo et al., Active suspension of truck seat , Trans.
servomotor and the ballscrew mechanism, even if the Japan Soc. Mech. Eng., Ser. C 62(600) (1996), 192–198
(in Japanese).
control is off. [20] H. Shinjo et al., Transient riding comfort for heavy duty
In practice, if the absolute displacement of the hip truck, J. Japan Soc. Auto. Eng. 43(12) (1989), 11–17
point decreased, then the relative displacement be- (in Japanese).
[21] G.J. Stein and I. Ballo, Active vibration control system for
tween the cab floor and the hip point increases, and it
the driver’s seat for off-road vehicles, Vehicle System Dy-
has an effect on the operations of the pedals and the namics 20(2) (1991), 57–78.
steering wheel.
 M. Kawana and T. Shimogo / Active suspension of truck seat 41

[22] G.J. Stein, Results of investigation of an electro-pneumatic [23] B.P. Volfson, Simulation of off-road vehicle operator station
active vibration control system for a driver’s seat, Proc. I. dynamics, Part 1: physical model, in: Proc. 10th Int. Conf.
Mech. E., part D: J. Automobile Eng. 209(3) (1995), 227– ISTVS, Vol. 3, Kobe, 1990, pp. 731–741.
234.

Received 22 January 1995; 16 December 1997

 International Journal of

Rotating
Machinery

International Journal of
The Scientific
Engineering Distributed
Journal of
Journal of

Hindawi Publishing Corporation

World Journal
Hindawi Publishing Corporation Hindawi Publishing Corporation
Sensors
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
Sensor Networks
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014 http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014 http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014 http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014 http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014

Journal of

Control Science
and Engineering

Advances in
Civil Engineering
Hindawi Publishing Corporation Hindawi Publishing Corporation
http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014 http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014

Submit your manuscripts at

http://www.hindawi.com

Journal of
Journal of Electrical and Computer
Robotics
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
Engineering
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014 http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014

VLSI Design
Advances in
OptoElectronics
International Journal of

International Journal of
Modelling &
Simulation
Aerospace
Hindawi Publishing Corporation Volume 2014
Navigation and
Observation
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014
in Engineering
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014
Engineering
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2010
Hindawi Publishing Corporation
http://www.hindawi.com
http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014

International Journal of
International Journal of Antennas and Active and Passive Advances in
Chemical Engineering Propagation Electronic Components Shock and Vibration Acoustics and Vibration
Hindawi Publishing Corporation Hindawi Publishing Corporation Hindawi Publishing Corporation Hindawi Publishing Corporation Hindawi Publishing Corporation
http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014 http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014 http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014 http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014 http://www.hindawi.com Volume 2014