Active and Regenerative Control of an Electrodynamic-Type Suspension.

An active vibration damper and an isolator are capable of reducing vibration remarkably and adaptively. One of their disadvantages is that they require a large amount of energy. Since vibration is a type of energy, a question arises as to how we can utilize this energy. In this paper an energy regenerative type suspension is presented, wherein an electrodynamic actuator is used and electric power is regenerated during the high-speed motion of the actuator. For low-speed motion, an active control algorithm is applied to the same actuator to achieve good damping performance. In order to reduce energy loss in the control amplifier, active relay control is applied instead of linear control. The system is simulated on a computer and a simple experiment is performed, The results show that the system has better performance than a passive suspension system and can regenerate vibration energy.