An electric vehicle comprises a vehicle chassis extending along a longitudinal axis and a rotatable vehicle drive axle disposed along a transverse axis and having opposed ends that are configured for attachment to a pair of opposed drive wheels. The electric vehicle also comprises a selectively movable electric propulsion motor comprising a rotatable motor shaft rotatable about a motor axis, the electric propulsion motor configured to be mounted within the vehicle chassis and operatively coupled to the rotatable vehicle drive axle and opposed drive wheels, the motor axis configured to be oriented in a substantially vertical direction.

Methods are provided for proactively controlling a component of a system. The system may comprise a vehicle and the component may comprise a suspension of the vehicle. According to various aspects, methods may include obtaining information regarding a travel surface along a travel path that the system will travel at a future time and, based on the information regarding the travel surface, controlling the component of the system to traverse the travel surface. Controlling the component based on the information regarding the travel surface may comprise comparing the information regarding the travel surface to information regarding at least one physical constraint of the system and/or comparing frequency content of the information regarding the travel surface to a threshold frequency. Proactive control methods may provide improved response to disturbances and improved tracking and isolation because a suspension may be controlled with reduced or substantially zero delay.

A system for determining a displacement velocity signal for controlling an active wheel suspension of a land vehicle by open-loop and/or closed-loop control includes at least one Kalman filter, and at least one acceleration sensor arranged on a sprung mass of the land vehicle to sense a vertical acceleration of the sprung mass and to generate a corresponding acceleration signal supplied to the Kalman filter. The Kalman filter includes a mathematical motion model of the sprung mass, and input states of the Kalman filter include a vertical acceleration of the sprung mass, a vertical displacement velocity of the sprung mass, and a vertical displacement distance of the sprung mass. A displacement measurement signal having a value 0 is supplied continuously to the Kalman filter to determine the displacement velocity signal. Constant noise variance values of a measurement noise covariance matrix of the Kalman filter that are assigned to the displacement measurement signal are, in each case, set at one half of a maximum vertical displacement distance of the sprung mass.

Map data regarding a vertical motion parameter related to a vertical motion of a wheel of a vehicle are provided. The map data have a data structure for a specific area. The data structure for the specific area includes at least one of: first layer map data indicating a correspondence relationship between a first vehicle traveling direction included in a first direction range, a position, and the vertical motion parameter; and second layer map data indicating a correspondence relationship between a second vehicle traveling direction included in a second direction range not overlapping the first direction range, a position, and the vertical motion parameter.

A system includes: a state module configured to selectively set a present state to a first state; a valve control module configured to determine first target open and closed states for valves of a suspension system based on the present state and to open and close the valves of the suspension system according to the first target open and closed states, respectively; a pump control module configured to, when the valves are in the first target open and closed states, respectively, selectively operate an electric pump of the suspension system in a first direction and increase a pressure of hydraulic fluid in a first portion of the suspension system including an accumulator, where the valve control module is configured to decrease the pressure in the first portion after the increase; and a diagnosis module configured to selectively diagnose a fault in the accumulator based on a pressure during the decrease.

A suspension device includes an actuator capable of generating a thrust force and a controller. The controller includes a first vibration suppression force computation unit configured to obtain a first vibration suppression force from a vertical velocity of a sprung member, a second vibration suppression force computation unit configured to obtain a second vibration suppression force from a vertical velocity of the unsprung member or a relative velocity between the sprung member and the unsprung member, a low-pass filter having a breakpoint frequency between a sprung resonance frequency and an unsprung resonance frequency and processing a signal in the course of obtaining the second vibration suppression force using the second vibration suppression force computation unit, and a target thrust force computation unit configured to obtain a target thrust force of the actuator on the basis of the first vibration suppression force and the second vibration suppression force.

A damping force control device for controlling damping forces of shock absorbers by a control device, which is configured to extract first vibration components in a first frequency range and second vibration components in a higher frequency range than the first frequency range from vertical accelerations of a sprung mass at the positions of wheels, to calculate correction coefficients which decrease as the degree of the second vibration increases with respect to the degree of the first vibration, and to control damping coefficients of of the shock absorbers so as to be the products of target damping forces calculated based on the vertical accelerations of the sprung mass and the correction coefficients.

An apparatus and a method for controlling vehicle suspension, which controls a variable damper in consideration of virtual tire damping, may include a variable damper which is installed between a vehicle body and a wheel, a first acceleration sensor which is installed at each corner of the vehicle body to measure a vehicle body corner vertical acceleration, a second acceleration sensor which is installed to each wheel to measure a wheel vertical acceleration, and a controller that estimates a road surface roughness based on the vehicle body corner vertical acceleration and the wheel vertical acceleration, determines a virtual tire damping required damping force based on the estimated road surface roughness, and adjusts a damping force of the variable damper based on the determined virtual tire damping required damping force.

An apparatus and a method for controlling a vehicle suspension, may include a variable damper provided between a vehicle body and a wheel, a sensor that measures a vehicle body vertical acceleration and a wheel vertical acceleration, and a controller that estimates a road surface roughness based on the vehicle body vertical acceleration and the wheel vertical acceleration, predicts a road surface grade based on the estimated road surface roughness, and adjusts damping force of the variable damper corresponding to the predicted road surface grade.

Provided is a damper with which the energy efficiency for attenuating input vibration corresponding to the unsprung resonance frequency and the sprung resonance frequency can be improved. Also provided is a method for manufacturing this damper. In this damper the electrical resonance frequency, as specified by the inductance of an electromagnetic motor and the capacitance of a capacitor, is set within ±20% of the unsprung resonance frequency, thereby enabling the input vibration corresponding to the sprung resonance frequency as well as the input vibration corresponding to the unsprung resonance frequency to be reduced.