Abstract
Goal of an active suspension control system is to achieve the following objectives in the presence of road disturbances and cost constraints: driving safety, driver and passenger comfort, freight protection, and road friendliness, while not requiring an unduly amount of rattle space. To reach this goal a criterion is formulated that closely fits with the disturbance signal and objective characteristics. It does not only involve quadratics but includes peak-to-peak gains and peak values. A robust controller designed for this criterion is shown to behave acceptable for nominal operating conditions, but to outperform a close-to-optimal passive suspension for large variations in road signal characteristics and load levels. This is illustrated for a tractor-semitrailer heavy-duty commercial vehicle.