M. Kazemi, M. Jooshani,
Volume 2, Issue 4 (10-2012)
Abstract
The suspension system of a vehicle is one of the most important parts which is involved in the process of
vehicle designing. When a vehicle suspension system is designed, the evaluation of its performance against
the road disturbances such as shocks and bumps are very important. The most commonly used systems
consist of four hydraulic Jacks with mobility in vertical line with low speed and low exactitude. This paper
offers a new mechanism for inspecting the suspension system of a vehicle using a parallel robot called
Stewart. This robot is a special kind of parallel robots with capability of movements in different directions
with high speed, accuracy and repeatability. In this paper the suspension system is evaluated on a quarter
model of a simulated vehicle with control and guidance of Stewart robot using PID controller. The Stewart
robot simulates the isolated and uneven bumps on a flat road in order to evaluate the given suspension
system, and to investigate some criteria such as comforting of the passengers and remaining of the vehicle
on the road. The results of the simulations show that the proposed method has a high accuracy, applicability
and flexibility as well as simplicity, compared to currently used mechanisms.
