Comparison between RST and PID controllers performance of a reduced order model and the original model of a hydraulic actuator dedicated to a semi-active suspension

Purpose In this paper, an effective method to calculate the reduced-order model (ROM) of high-order linear time-invariant system is elaborated; this is done by evaluating time moments of the original high-order model (HOM). Design/methodology/approach The developed method has been applied to a hydraulic actuator of antiroll bar mechanism dedicated to heavy vehicle semi-active suspension. And as the actuator is a large-scale system; and that in this case, the only control applied is a classical control and with trial and error procedure (like PID), the use of an order reduction method is necessary. Hence, the actuator that has an eighth-order transfer function with uncontrollable states has been approximated by fully controllable second-order model, which is suitable for feedback controllers (RST, LQR […]). The RST control is applied to control the roll angle of the actuator and simulations are carried out to show the effectiveness of the procedure. Findings It is clear that RST shows good tracking as compared to PID. For further work, the given RST controller has a discrete character and can be easily implemented on the real process and then as a further simulation, one can use another controller such as fractional adaptive controller. Originality/value In the recent years, the technological need of modeling order, thus the complexity of the systems, directed the researchers toward the reduction of order of these systems, not only to facilitate the analysis but also to find a suitable approximation of the high-order systems while keeping the same important characteristics as closely as possible. Several methods are available but they fail to give stable transfer functions or important characteristics of the original system.