Preview-based MPC for active suspension control of tank vehicle with lateral liquid sloshing suppression

This paper proposes an active suspension control method for tank vehicle, which can effectively suppress the lateral sloshing of liquid cargo, so as to improve the tank vehicle’s roll stability under the coupling excitation of non-structural road environment and additional moments of liquid cargo. Firstly, to describe the additional moments generated by the liquid cargo when the vehicle is laterally excited, a liquid sloshing equivalent mechanical pendulum model is put forward. Further, realizing the significant influence of road parameters on the roll stability of the vehicle, the liquid-vehicle-road coupling model is derived under the consideration of road curvature and cross-slope. Subsequently, based on the road information obtained in advance, a preview-based model predictive control (MPC) controller is designed to improve the roll stability of the tank vehicle and suppress the lateral sloshing of the liquid. Finally, the simulation is verified based on Matlab/Simulink under two complex scenarios, which indicates that the proposed control method can achieve better control effect compared with the traditional linear quadratic regulator (LQR) controller.