Design and experimental evaluation of road excitation simulator actuated by electro-hydraulic system

Abstract

This study focuses on the design and experimental evaluation of a road excitation simulator driven by an electro-hydraulic system. The simulator is employed to create road irregularities, which are then applied to the vehicle platform during laboratory testing. To generate the desired road inputs by the simulator, a fuzzy tracking control law is developed based on expert knowledge of the system derived from displacement data obtained from a linear potentiometer transformer. The fuzzy controller utilizes the Mamdani structure to compute the required voltage for the electro-hydraulic directional valves. This controller is implemented through the LabView interface, and its performance is evaluated and compared against a proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller under various road inputs. Experimental results from tests conducted on a fabricated platform in the laboratory demonstrate that the fuzzy method offers superior accuracy and reliability compared to the PID controller. The designed simulator is capable of generating a variety of standard road inputs for testing the vibrations of various vehicles and their cargo.