SUSPENSION FAULT DIAGNOSTICS USING VEHICLE PITCH AND ROLL MODELS

The vehicle suspension system, including springs, dampers and stabilizer bars are critical to vehicle riding and handling experience. Automatic fault detection, isolation and failure prognosis of the suspension system will greatly improve vehicle perceived quality, serviceability and customer experience. In our previous work [1], a static diagnostic approach using a ramp with the known slope is proposed. Even though the method can effectively isolate the suspension system faults to each vehicle corner, it requires additional setups at dealerships. In this work, a passive approach using the vehicle pitch and roll models is presented, which can accurately isolate broken springs, leaking dampers, and broken stabilizer bars. Some enabling conditions are proposed to improve the overall algorithm robustness. The proposed solution is verified using the data collected from a test vehicle.