Control over limited-stroke suspensions using jerk

This paper investigates a suspension control that applies Pontryagin's theorem to the problem of returning a system to equilibrium in minimum time. This can be viewed as a special case of a sliding-mode control. Sliding-mode control is known for “chattering” around the switching plane. By using jerk (the rate-of-change of acceleration) as the control variable, chattering on the switching manifold becomes simply small changes in acceleration, rather than highly uncomfortable extreme changes in acceleration. Evolutionary algorithms were used to evolve suboptimal controls that could be used for a fair test of relative performance. The use of evolutionary algorithms, using computer power running over a large number of models, provides a testing regime where analytical techniques are impossible.