A comparison of semi-active control strategies for the MR damper

Because the behavior of semi-active devices is often highly nonlinear, one of the main challenges in the application of this technology is the development of appropriate control algorithms. In this paper, a number of recently proposed semi-active control algorithms are evaluated for use with the magnetorheological (MR) damper, an innovative semi-active control device that appears to be particularly promising for civil engineering applications. The performance of the resulting control systems are compared through simulation, and the advantages of each algorithm are discussed. The results demonstrate that the performance of the control system is highly dependent on the choice of algorithm employed.