A shock absorber for a vehicle having a damper and a first and second springs mounted coaxially around the damper and a preload adjuster for partially compressing at least one of the springs independently of the compression stroke. In one embodiment the preload adjuster is remotely controllable. In another embodiment the shock absorber includes an additional mechanism for preloading at least one of the springs.

Provided is a damper for a semi-active energy regenerative suspension based on hybrid excitation. The damper includes: an upper lifting lug, a dustcover, a lower lifting lug, a hydraulic shock absorber, and a hybrid excitation mechanism, wherein the hydraulic shock absorber is configured to provide a constant viscous damping coefficient, and wherein the hybrid excitation mechanism is configured to generate an adjustable electromagnetic damping force, to transform the vibration energy into electrical energy, and to storage the electrical energy. Also provided is a method for determining the sizes of the damper. The damper which has a simple structure, balances the vibration isolation property and energy regenerative property of the vehicle suspension, and provides a fail-safe function. Furthermore, the method for determining the sizes of the damper is easy and practical to implement, has definite steps and produces drastically optimized results.

A spring for a suspension is described. The spring includes: a spring chamber divided into at least a primary portion and a secondary portion, and a fluid flow path coupled with and between the primary portion and the secondary portion. The fluid flow path includes a bypass mechanism, wherein the bypass mechanism is configured for automatically providing resistance within the fluid flow path in response to a compressed condition of the suspension.

The subject invention reveals a distance measuring device comprising: a sensing module, a target module, and an evaluating module, wherein the sensing module and the target module are mountable so as to execute a movement with respect to each other along a movement trajectory, wherein the target module comprises a magnetic field generating element having a magnetic pole axis, wherein the sensing module comprises a first magnetic field sensing array being arranged distant to the movement trajectory. The sensing module and the target module can advantageously be situated within the pressurizable chamber of an air spring which is defined by (contained within) a first mounting plate, a second mounting plate, and a flexible member of the air spring.

A robot and a robot control method are provided. The robot includes: a robot body, a pose detector being mounted on the robot body; a chassis body provided at a bottom of the robot body; a moving assembly connected to the robot body through a suspension shock absorber, the moving assembly being further connected to a controllable damping rotating shaft, and rotationally connected to the chassis body through the controllable damping rotating shaft; and a controller electrically connected to the pose detector and the controllable damping rotating shaft, respectively, and used to control the controllable damping rotating shaft to change rotational resistance according to pose information of the robot detected by the pose detector.

A compressed air supply installation for operating an air suspension installation of a vehicle includes an air supply unit configured to supply air, an air compression unit configured to compress air, a bleeding line, and a compressed air supply line. The bleeding line includes a bleeding valve arrangement in the form of a controllable solenoid valve arrangement comprising a magnetic part and a pneumatic part actuatable directly via the magnetic part, and a bleeding port for bleeding air. The compressed air supply line includes an air dryer, and a compressed air port for supplying the pneumatic installation with compressed air. The pneumatic part is open in an unactivated state of the magnetic part of the solenoid valve arrangement. The pneumatic part is open in a branch line of the compressed air supply line between a pressure-side valve port and a control-side valve port of the branch line.

A shock absorber for a vehicle having a damper and a first and second springs mounted coaxially around the damper and a preload adjuster for partially compressing at least one of the springs independently of the compression stroke. In one embodiment the preload adjuster is remotely controllable. In another embodiment the shock absorber includes an additional mechanism for preloading at least one of the springs.

A vehicle suspension system (3) includes an electromagnetic damper (7) provided with a sprung member (8) and an unsprung member (9) to apply a drive force and a damping force between the sprung member and the unsprung member, and a control unit (10) for controlling the electromagnetic damper. A target load for the electromagnetic damper is determined based on the unsprung member demand load that attenuates a vertical vibration of the unsprung member, and the sprung member demand load that restrains a vertical displacement of the sprung member. An absolute value of the sprung member demand load is reduced when a sprung member frequency is in an unsprung member resonance frequency range.

A vehicle suspension system (3) is provided that allows attention eliciting information such as rumble strips, bumps and road markers to be conveyed to the vehicle operator substantially without detracting from the performance of the vehicle suspension system. A control unit (10) determines if a prescribed warning condition exists according to vehicle information and/or road surface information acquired by an information acquiring unit, and performs a warning control including an extending and retracting movement of the actuator interposed between an sprung member (8) and an unsprung member (9) of the vehicle at a prescribed frequency when the warning condition is determined.

A shock absorber for a vehicle having a damper and a first and second springs mounted coaxially around the damper and a preload adjuster for partially compressing at least one of the springs independently of the compression stroke. In one embodiment the preload adjuster is remotely controllable. In another embodiment the shock absorber includes an additional mechanism for preloading at least one of the springs.