Study on Ambulance Stretcher Vibration Isolation System

The ride comfort is one of the most important performances of the ambulance. In order to avoid patients' illness or injury to deteriorate during the transportation, the ambulance is required to hold smooth motion and high speed. Therefore, it is necessary to develop stretcher vibration isolation system to improve ambulance ride comfort. In this paper, a mathematic model of six degree freedom ambulance-stretcher-occupant system is established. Based on the theory of linear quadratic optimal control, the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) controller of active ambulance stretcher is designed. The simulation results indicate that the active system equipped with the optimal controller has better vibration reduction perfomance on vertical acceleration and pitch angular acceleration of the ambulance stretcher.