The invention relates to a method for controlling at least one actuator (16, 18) for a chassis of a motor vehicle, in which at least one sensor (10, 12, 14) of the motor vehicle determines values of at least one measurement variable for sensing an environment of the motor vehicle, wherein the determined values are preprocessed, wherein only the values needed to control the at least one actuator (16, 18) are transmitted from a control device (4) associated with the sensor to a control device (6) associated with the actuator and are temporally filtered by the control device (6) associated with the actuator, and wherein the control device (6) associated with the actuator uses the temporally filtered values to provide actuating signals for the at least one actuator (16, 18).

In some embodiments, a range sensor is configured to detect a distance between a portion of a vehicle and an object above the portion of the vehicle. In some embodiments, the detected distance may be presented to an operator to allow the operator to control a height of an adjustable suspension in order to manually control the distance. In some embodiments, the detected distance may be used to automatically control the distance. In some embodiments, the distance may be controlled in order to allow the vehicle to couple to the object, such as a fifth wheel of the vehicle coupling to a kingpin of a trailer.

A detected displacement of a marker on a vehicle is determined based on image data captured while the vehicle traverses a displacement object of a ground surface. Then a health status of a suspension component of the vehicle is determined to be unhealthy based on comparing the detected displacement of the marker to a target displacement of the marker. The target displacement specifies displacement of the marker that indicates the suspension component is healthy. The vehicle is operated based on the suspension component being unhealthy.

A traveling support device includes: a comparing unit that compares a detection result based on an output value output from a sensor for detecting a state of a vehicle with a reference value stored in advance; and a controller that, when comparison by the comparing unit determines that the detection result is equal to or more than the reference value, switches a first control mode to a second control mode different from the first control mode with respect to at least one of a display control capable of switching display of information on the vehicle, a vehicle height control capable of switching a vehicle height with a vehicle height adjustment device of the vehicle, and a vehicle speed control capable of switching a speed limit value with a vehicle control device of the vehicle.

A method for controlling a suspension system of a vehicle, as well as suspension systems, and a vehicle including a suspension system is provided. The suspension system may include at least one adjustable damping device that is controlled via a control signal, such as from a controller of the suspension system, in order to dynamically adjust the damping characteristic of the damping device. The control signal may be generated on the basis of at least one of current driving dynamics data and optically recorded information about an area of a ground surface.

A method of optimizing a suspension system to avoid pitch resonance may include determining pitch characteristics of a vehicle for a terrain profile and speed range via a model associated with the vehicle, decoupling front and rear axles by removing pitch inertia from the model, and determining optimized damping for a main damper of a position sensitive damper over a linear range of wheel travel in a bounce control zone based on the pitch characteristics. The method may further include recoupling the front and rear axles by adding the pitch inertia back into the model, and selecting a secondary damper associated with a compression zone or a secondary damper associated with a rebound zone as a selected damper for adjustment based on which of the front and rear axles is limiting. The method may also include performing a damping adjustment to the selected damper and cyclically repeating selecting the secondary damper and performing the damping adjustment until pitch resonance is suppressed.

Systems and methods for modeling electric vehicle towing are disclosed herein. An example method includes determining that a trailer is connected to a vehicle, generating a surface mapping of the trailer based on output of a sensor assembly of the vehicle, predicting a drag coefficient of the trailer based on the surface mapping, estimating a drag force based on the drag coefficient and the surface mapping, calculating an estimated range for the vehicle based on the drag force, and displaying the estimated range on a human machine interface of the vehicle.

According to certain embodiments, a device comprises a body, a mechanical propulsion system affixed to the body to cause the body to traverse a multi-oriented surface and to prevent contact between the body and the multi-oriented surface, a thrust system to apply a thrust force to the device that opposes a gravitational force acting on the device, and a payload with at least one sensor to detect a characteristics of the multi-oriented surface.

A suspension monitoring and adjustment system for an off-road vehicle includes a distance sensor arranged to measure shock displacement of a suspension of the vehicle. The system may include an output device configured to output shock displacement data generated by the distance sensor and a processor or programmable circuit operable to produce a visual representation of the shock displacement data output by the output device. The system may include a processor or programmable circuit operable to generate an adjustment signal based on shock displacement data generated by the distance sensor and a suspension adjuster arranged to adjust the suspension of the vehicle in response to the adjustment signal.

A multi-degree-of-freedom active damping mechanism control method, system and a damping mechanism are provided. A skyhook active damping control algorithm is used for controlling an electric cylinder output force in a vertical damping direction, and an adaptive control algorithm with an adaptive rate is used for correcting a load moment of inertia in pitch and roll damping directions. At the same time, a predictive model is established according to a task space linearization equation near an equilibrium point, and states of the system at N future moments are predicted in advance at each moment to achieve optimal control under complex constraints and reduce the influence of system delay. At the same time, the three control methods may further improve the active damping effect of the damping device by combining road information obtained by a visual sensor in real time.