Truck Suspension Control For Pavement Protection At Signalized Intersections

The lifespan of pavements at signalized intersections is much shorter than other pavements, especially in areas with heavy traffic flow of heavy duty trucks, resulting from the great weight transfer in the braking process of heavy duty trucks. To prolong the lifespan of pavements in such areas, suspension control algorithms are proposed in this paper while considering vehicle braking, with a purpose to minimize the dynamic tire load which is believed to be an important cause of premature road failure. In this paper, the model of a heavy articulated truck is built first. Based on the model, the relation between the road damage and the braking intensity is explored. Then, the linear quadratic regulator (LQR) and model predictive control (MPC) algorithms are employed and compared, with road roughness and human braking behavior as disturbances. Results show that both the control algorithms can reduce approximately 26% road damage of the tractor drive wheels and MPC control algorithm achieves better improvement for the steering wheels.