Mobility Improvement of Wheeled Military Vehicles Using Preview Controlled Active Ride Height System

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to increase the mobility capabilities of wheeled military vehicles by designing a preview control strategy with Model Predictive Controller (MPC). Mobility capabilities of a military vehicle such as trench and obstacle crossing in the off-road are base design criteria that limit the design.

The study is basically divided into three parts. The target of the first part is to create a vehicle and create a co-simulation environment where MATLAB and ADAMS can run together. In the second part, the level of achievable improvement in vehicle’s operational abilities is investigated. Developing a controller and optimizing vehicle ride height and position for better mobility operations are the main objectives of this part. The actuating system for the vehicle is its own hydropneumatic suspensions. All wheels are assumed to be independent and have height-adjustable springs/dampers. Many vehicles can adjust ride height passively according to off-road conditions. However, this passive adjustment can restrict mobility skills of the vehicle. In this thesis, measured road data is used to improve the controller performance and create an obstacle crossing algorithm.

At the end of the first two parts of the study, comparison with simulations for different land operation scenarios is given for both uncontrolled and controlled system. By this, scenario-based results are compared, and improvement levels are determined.