Adaptive control of an active seat for occupant vibration reduction

Abstract The harmful effects on human performance and health caused by unwanted vibration from vehicle seats are of increasing concern. This paper presents an active seat system to reduce the vibration level transmitted to the seat pan and the occupants’ body under low frequency periodic excitation. Firstly, the detail of the mechanical structure is given and the active seat dynamics without external load are characterized by vibration transmissibility and frequency responses under different excitation forces. Owing the nonlinear and time-varying behaviour of the proposed system, a Filtered-x least-mean-square (FXLMS) adaptive control algorithm with on-line Fast-block LMS (FBLMS) identification process is employed to manage the system operation for high vibration cancellation performance. The effectiveness of the active seat system is assessed through real-time experimental tests using different excitation profiles. The system identification results show that an accurate estimation of the secondary path is achieved by using the FBLMS on-line technique. Substantial reduction is found for cancelling periodic vibration containing single and multiple frequencies. Additionally, the robustness and stability of the control system are validated through transient switching frequency tests.