Design and Performance Analysis of Fuzzy LQR,
Fuzzy PID and LQR Controller for Active Suspension
System using 3 Degree of Freedom Quarter car model
Jumi Bharali
M.E. student, Department of Electrical Engineering
Jorhat Engineering College
Jorhat-785007, Assam, India
jumibharali41@gmail.com
Abstract— The aim of this research work is to design three
types of active controller for active suspension system. A 3
Degree Of Freedom (DOF) quarter car model is used to analyze
and compare the performance characteristics of the active system
with the uncontrolled system or passive suspension system.
Suspension system plays an essential role in isolating vehicle body
from road shocks and vibrations. The goal of suspension system
is to improve ride comfort, road handling and stability of
vehicles. The objective is to determine control strategy to deliver
better performance with respect to seat velocity, suspension
deflection, sprung mass displacement, sprung mass velocity, peak
overshoot, settling time etc. The three controllers designed are
LQR based fuzzy controller, Fuzzy PID controller and Linear
Quadratic Controller (LQR). In this work,
MATLAB/SIMULINK software is used for simulation purpose
and simulation result shows that active suspension system
exhibits better result than passive suspension system. Also the
result of comparison shows that Fuzzy LQR controller based
active suspension system gives better result and stability as
compared to other active controllers and passive model.
Keywords—Degree of freedom(DOF),LQR based Fuzzy
controller,Fuzzy PID controller, LQR controller, seat velocity,
suspension deflection, sprung mass displacement, sprung mass
velocity, peak overshoot, settling time.
I. INTRODUCTION
Suspension system is divided into three types depending
upon principle of operating: passive, semi active and active
suspension system. A passive suspension system consists of
springs and dampers. Softer dampers provide a more
comfortable drive and stiffer damper provide more stable drive.
Therefore, compromise has to make between comfort and
stability.
In semi active suspension system there is a variable
damping element that can change according to actual demands.
Active suspension system contains separate actuator that can
exert extra force on the suspension system. In design of
suspension system several other performance parameters such
978-1-4673-8587-9/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE
Mrinal Buragohain
Associate Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering
Jorhat Engineering College
Jorhat-785007, Assam, India
mrinalburagohain@gmail.com
as ride comfort, road handling and suspension travel. It is not
possible to optimize all these parameters all together in a
suspension system. But a better trade- off among these
parameters can be achieved in active suspension system. In the
recent years, many researchers have investigated different
types of active suspension system using variety of models like
¼ or quarter car model, ½ or half car model, full car model etc.
Many researchers had already used linear lower order models
like 2 DOF quarter car model of suspension system. 2 DOF
quarter car models are successfully applied using control
techniques like PID, LQR, LQG, FUZZY, sliding mode
control, composite nonlinear feedback control[1][2][3][4][5].
As with increasing numbers of degree of freedom the
characteristics of system change, a 3 DOF system is used and a
fuzzy logic controller for the suspension system is designed
and analyzed to compare fuzzy logic controller with that of
passive suspension system [6].
. Fuzzy PID control technique was successfully applied in 2
DOF quarter car model based active suspension system [10].
LQR based fuzzy control theory was implemented in [11].
Fuzzy LQR control theory so far is not yet implemented in
design of active suspension system. The novelty of this paper is
to design Fuzzy LQR control for active suspension system.
Fuzzy PID control is developed for 3 Degree Of Freedom
(DOF) quarter car model. After design of Fuzzy LQR and
Fuzzy PID control scheme for the system, the performance of
the proposed system is compared with Fuzzy PID,
conventional LQR control system and passive model.
Section II gives description and mathematical modeling of
3 degree of freedom quarter car model. Section III gives
formulation and design of the three proposed controllers.
Section IV gives description of simulation result and
comparison of control schemes. Section V gives the
conclusion.
 II. MODELLING OF 3 DOF QUARTER CAR MODEL ̇ (7)
In this work, a 3 DOF quarter car model is used. It is ̇
simplified version of the full car model representing most of
the features of the full car model. It consists of passenger mass ⁄ ( ) ( ) ( )
along with the seat which is represented using spring and [ ]
( )
damper. The sprung mass, also known as mas of the car body
is supported on springs and dampers and the unsprung mass (8)
represents mass of wheel. Tyre is replaced by using spring.
Fig. 1 represents the 3 DOF quarter car model for active
suspension system [7]. ̇ (9)
̇
⁄ ( ) ( ) ( )
[ ]
(10)
The passive suspension system can be designed using same
equations with fa=0. Hydraulic dynamics of force actuator is
not taken into account here and it is believed that the required
force is applied in between the sprung and unsprung mass.
Table I shows value of all the system parameters used in the
model [6].

TABLE I. SYSTEM PARAMETER VALUES

System parameter
symbol
Description value Unit
mp Passenger mass 100 Kg
Sprung mass 2050 Kg
ms Unsprung mass 100 Kg
mus Stiffness of the seat 100000 N/m
Fig.1. 3 DOF quarter car model of active suspension system [7].
kp Damping coefficient of seat 6000 Ns/m
cp Stiffness of suspension system 400000 N/m
Damping coeffcient of 5000 Ns/m
ks suspension system
A. Equations cs Stiffness of the tyre 2000000 N/m
Differential equations of the system are attained by
implementing Newton‟s second law of motion to the seat,
sprung mass and unsprung mass and the equations are as III. CONTROLLER DESIGN
follows.
In this work, three controllers are designed i.e. LQR, Fuzzy
̈ ( ) ( ̇ ̇ ) (1) PID and Fuzzy LQR controller.

̈ ( ) ( ̇ ̇ ) ( A. LQR controller
) ( ̇ ̇ ) (2) I. LQR controller design for linear systems with
measurable disturbances
̈ ( ) ( ̇ ̇ )
( ) (3) Standard LQR control approach syntheses an optimal
controller for systems without disturbances. But most of
By taking ̇ ̇ the systems are affected by disturbances that also effect
̇ , the equation can be written in terms of state control optimality. In this section, the LQR control
variable as follows design for linear systems that are excited by
disturbances will be presented.
̇ (4)
II. Problem definition
Where X=state input variable matrix
Considering general form of a linear time-varying
U=control input variable matrix system [11] including disturbances as follows:
W=road input matrix. ( ) ( ) ( )
̇
̇ (5) ( ) ( ) ( ) (11)
̇ , ( ) ( )- (6)
 Where, and .The disturbances made in the form of table II of the designed fuzzy PID
( ) is supposed to be measurable in real time. controller.
The LQR problem for the system defined by eq. (11) is
to find a control input u(t) which minimizes the TABLE II. FUZZY CONTROL RULES FOR KP, KI AND KD
objective function J defined by (12). E
Kp
∫ ,( ) ( ) N ZE P
- N P P ZE
ZE ZE ZE ZE

EC
∫ ,( ) ( ) ( P N N ZE
) ) -

E
∫ , ( ) ( ) ( Ki
N ZE P
) - ∫ * N P P ZE

EC
+ ZE ZE ZE ZE
P N N ZE
∫ ,( )+ (
)-
∫ , ( ) (12) E
Kd
N ZE P
Different from the standard LQR problem is the second N N N ZE
group of terms that depends on disturbances w(t). ZE N ZE P

EC
Therefore, the control law has to be a function of both P ZE P P
x(t) and w(t). Using Pontryagin‟s maximum principle
and Euler-Lagrange equation, the optimal control is
defined b, . Fig. 2, 3 and 4 show the fuzzy output surfaces of Kp, Ki
(13) and Kd respectively.
Optimal state feedback controller gain is given by
( ) (14)
Optimal disturbance feed forward controller gain is
given by

{ , ( ) - [( )
( )]} (15)
P matrix must satisfy the reduced form of the standard
Fig.2. Fuzzy surface of the parameter Kp.
Riccati equation shown in eq. (16).
̇ ( ) ( )
(16)
B. FUZZY PID controller
Taking conventional PID controller as foundation
Fuzzy self-adjusting PID controller is the combination
of PID controller with adjustable parameters and fuzzy
controller. Here, Interval change of PID parameters i.e.
Kp, Ki, Kd are calculated utilizing fuzzy logic. In this
work PID controller takes relative displacement as Fig.3. Fuzzy surface of the parameter Ki.
error(E) and relative velocity as rate of change of
error(EC) and outputs adjustable PID parameters(Kp,
Ki, Kd) according to the requirement using fuzzy rules.
The design steps of the controller are as follows:
 In this work, gaussian membership functions are used
for each variable. Linguistic variables assigned to these
fuzzy sets are, N, ZE and P.
Mamdani type of inference method and centroid Fig.4. Fuzzy surface of the parameter Kd.
defuzzification method are used. Fuzzy control rules are
 C. FUZZY LQR controller TABLE III. FUZZY CONTROL RULES

The 3 degree of quarter car model has 6 state variables. The Error, E
maximum number of rules using fuzzy controller without PB PM PS ZE NS NM NB
fusion will be 76 if 7 linguistic variables are used. This can PB PB PB PB PM PM PS ZE
cause rule number explosion in fuzzy controller. To overcome

Rate of error, EC
PM PB PB PM PM PS ZE NS
this problem a method has been applied in which a linear
fusion function is developed combining features of optimal PS PB PM PM PS ZE NS NM
LQR theory and fuzzy control strategy to reduce number of ZE PM PM PS ZE NS NM NM
rules. Using this method multiple variables can be transformed NS PM PS ZE NS NM NM NB
into error E and rate of change of error EC, therefore NM PS ZE NS NM NM NB NB
NB ZE NS NM NM NB NB NB
simplifying The FLC structure.

Fig. 6 shows the fuzzy 3-D output surface for the proposed
Fuzzy LQR controller using the Gaussian membership
function.

Fig.5. The structure of the fuzzy LQR controller.

The design steps of the controller are as follows:

 Calculate the state feedback matrix gain by
selecting appropriate value of Q and R matrix that
can make the suspension system basically stable
Fig.6. Fuzzy output surface of the Fuzzy LQR controller.
through LQR theory.
 Design fusion function F1(X) using state feedback
matrix and it is defined as follows IV. RESULT AND DISCUSSION
( )
The input chosen for testing performance of the closed loop
[‖ ‖ ‖ ‖ ‖ ‖ ̇ ̇ ̇ ] (17) suspension system is a step input signal of amplitude 0.1 m.
‖ ‖ ‖ ‖ ‖ ‖ This step signal represents a sudden change of road height of
10 cm, e.g. pavement.
Where,
A. LQR controller
, - √ ̇ ̇ ̇ Using Matlab coding the values for and used in the
simulation are found to be as,
(18)
=1.0e+04 *
 By using fusion function F1(X), error, E and rate of
error, EC can be calculated as (19) [-0.3288 0.6858 1.7517 0.1025 -0.3464 0.0035]
and
[ ] ( ) (19)
According to the parameters of quarter car model, C. FUZZY PID and FUZZY LQR controller
the fusion function can be calculated as follows
Fuzzy PID and Fuzzy LQR controller are designed using
( ) MALAB‟s FUZZY logic toolbox Instead of using variable step
[ ] „ode45‟solver, „ode 8‟ solver with 0.01 sampling time is used
throughout the experiment as the response gets much slower in
Membership function used for input and output are „ode 45‟.
gaussian membership function. The Mamdani type of
inference method and centroid defuzzification method are I. FUZZY PID controller
used. Table III shows the fuzzy control rule base of the
Justification factor and defuzzification factor that are used
proposed fuzzy LQR fusion logic controller.
are Ke=Kec=1and K1=K2=K3=1. Initial values of PID
parameters are Kp=Ki=1 and Kd=0. Range of error, rate of
error, Kp, Ki and Kd are estimated as follows:
E=[-0.1293 0.0686], EC=[-10.1 6.59],Kp=[0 1e+04],
Ki=[0 1e+05],Kd=[5000 3e+04]
D. Result
Fig. 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 show the comparison between the
Fuzzy LQR, Fuzzy PID and LQR based active suspension
system and passive suspension system.

Fig.9. Seat velocity (m/sec) vs. time (sec).

Fig.7. Passenger acceleration (m/sec2) vs. time (sec).

Fig.10. Sprung mass velocity (m/sec) vs. time (sec).

Fig.8. Suspension deflection (m) vs. time (sec).

Fig.11. Sprung mass displacement (m) vs. time (sec).

Table III, IV, V, VI and VII show the comparison of the active
suspension system equipped with proposed controllers with
passive suspension system.
 TABLE IV. PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF SUSPENSION V. CONCLUSIONS
DEFLECTION
The mathematical model of the three degree of freedom
Suspension deflection
LQR F-PID F-LQR PASSIVE quarter car model is firstly designed. LQR gain mapping based
Maximum peak value (m)
0.04
0.0405 0 0.0685
fusion method is combined with fuzzy logic to apply in the
32 system and „rule number explosion‟ is solved.
Settling time (sec.) 2.2 1.8 0.8 7.5
Fuzzy LQR, Fuzzy PID and LQR controller design is
Steady state error (%) 0 0 0 0
examined for the analysis of a three degree of freedom quarter
TABLE V. PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF SEAT ACCELERATION car model. Maximum peak to peak amplitude and settling time
were used to investigate the performance of different
Seat acceleration
LQR F-PID F-LQR PASSIVE
controller schemes. Simulation results depict that considerable
Maximum peak value 23.6 41.590 difference between the results of passive and active suspension
37.162 23.7147
(m/sec^2) 09 6 system. Another conclusion is that the three control schemes
Settling time (sec.) 2 1.5 0.7 8.5 proposed here gave good results especially for settling time
Steady state error (%) 0 0 0 0
reduction and maximum peak to peak amplitude. Fuzzy PID
controller gave better result in comparison to the LQR
TABLE VI. PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF SEAT VELOCITY
controller. In case of performance parameters like suspension
travel, sprung mass velocity, seat velocity, sprung mass
Seat velocity displacement Fuzzy LQR control scheme gives better result as
LQR F-PID F-LQR PASSIVE
Maximum peak value 1.08 compared to other control methods. Hence, the proposed
1.3876 0.8372 1.2525 Fuzzy LQR control exhibits better performance than the other
(m/sec) 68
Settling time (sec.) 2 1.5 1 9 two controllers.
Steady state error (%) 0 0 0 0
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TABLE VII. PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS OF SPRUNG MASS
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