Active suspension in combat vehicles - Effect on mobility, comfort and accuracy

Abstract: In this thesis the effect of an active suspension system versus a passive suspensionsystem utilized on a main battle tank/combat vehicle is studied. The effect oncomfort, mobility, accuracy and power draw is discussed. This is done with thegoal to study and understand if an improvement can be made using active sys-tems. This is done mainly by simulation of a main battle tank/combat vehicle inSimulink/Matlab. The active suspension system chosen was the skyhook suspension system whichwas compared to a regular passive suspension. The results show that the activesuspension system has positive effects on comfort, mobility and accuracy. Thisthesis discusses the viability of such a system. This is done through analysing thepower draw of the active system and through reasoning about use in field situations.Besides comfort, mobility and accuracy, the results also show that in some cases theactive suspension would need more power than the engine can generate. In additionan active suspension system would be very sensitive due to the complexity of thecomponents needed. If it is possible to control the power draw and the sensitivityof an active suspension system it would vastly improve the comfort, mobility andaccuracy of main battle tanks/combat vehicles.