BULLETIN OF APPLIED MECHANICS 4(15), 88-91 (2008)

Identification of Phenomenological Shock Absorber

Model Using Neuro-Fuzzy Method
ika Z., Bauma V., Valek M., Blkovsk, A., Kukula P., Steinbauer P.
AbstractThe paper deals with the creation of the
phenomenological damper model using the neuro-fuzzy
identification algorithm LOLIMOT. The models are identified
based on the measured data of passenger car shock absorber. The
different variants of model inputs are tested. The damper force of
the final model depends statically on relative velocity and relative
acceleration inputs. The identified model is implemented into
simulation model of the car suspension. The acceleration is
resolved from the implicit nonlinear equations in order to
preserve causality of differential equations solution.
Index TermsIdentification, shock absorber model, neurofuzzy method, global damper characteristics.

INTRODUCTION

I.

HE reliable simulation model of the shock absorber

must be set up based on the suitable set of identification
experiments. This is true for the model structure as well as for
the model parameters. Both are tuned in order to finish with
the best possible agreement between model output and the
measured damper data. Because of the typical nonlinearities
and complex dynamics of shock absorbers also the robustness
and numerical stability of model is of great interest. The final
choice of the model is always compromise, the scale of
possible models is very broad [1]. Two basic concepts or
directions of modeling can be applied.
Physical modeling using knowledge of shock absorber
inner structure (e.g. [2]).
Phenomenological modeling based on the input-output
relations for important damper regimes (e.g. [3]).
The physical shock absorber models are characterized
typically by equations for flow of oils through the throttlevalves and pressure changes in separate chambers.
Nevertheless
such
models
also
contain
some
phenomenological parts, for example a simple regression
relations between flow and pressure difference. Therefore the
bound between the phenomenological and physical modeling
is more or less fuzzy. The first type of the phenomenological
models is based on the replacement of hydrodynamic system
by simple mechanical model combining basic idealized
components like a spring, damping element, Coulomb friction
elements etc. The well known example of the models of such
type is described in [3]. The second type of the
phenomenological models use the general input-output
modeling. Such type of modeling is presented e.g. in [4] or in
[5]. The usage of the phenomenological models is impossible

in context of the shock absorber design including changing of

the damper structure. On the other hand the advantage of the
phenomenological models is their simple adaptability for
dampers of different physical principle and for different
operating conditions. Globally the shock absorber model must
fulfill several basic properties.
The shock absorber is the dissipative device.
The basic characteristics of the shock absorber is the
nonlinear force-velocity dependence.
The shock absorber has an important hysteretic
behaviour. The internal damper hysteresis is typically
increased by the silent block mounting.
The presented paper deals with the creation of the
phenomenological damper model using the static identification
based on the neuro-fuzzy identification algorithm LOLIMOT
[6], [7]. The different variants of model inputs are tested, the
final model is successfully implemented into simulation model.
The method can be useful also for the controllable shock
absorbers [8], [9], [10]. This will be topic of the future
development.
II. LOLIMOT IDENTIFICATION APROACH
The identification approach is based on general (blackbox) input-output models. There has been used the local linear
neuro-fuzzy modeling approach. It is an adaptive sequence of
linear models that approximates the nonlinear behaviour of the
identified system by linear models valid especially in
particular sub-regions of the whole region. The identification
algorithm is called LOLIMOT and was developed in [6]. The
new implementation was done at CTU [7]. The mathematical
models of the system identified with the LOLIMOT are called
LOLI-models. They are created with multiple inputs but single
output. For systems with multiple outputs the LOLI-models are
determined for each output exclusively.
The main idea is to approximate the generally non-linear
multivariable function of system output with scalar product of
vector of linear functions and vector of so-called validity
functions. The input space is stepwise splitted into subregions. Roughly speaking, each linear function approximates
the system output in sub-region determined by relevant validity
function. The complexity of the resulting model is given by
number of members of these vectors. The output of the model
can be then written generally for dynamic models including
quantities in different discrete time points.

BULLETIN OF APPLIED MECHANICS 4(15), 88-91 (2008)

~
y = ~y (u ) = (w + w u (k ) + w u (k 1) + ... + w u (k n ) + ...
M

i =1

i,0

i ,1

i,2

+ w u (k ) + w u (k 1) + ... + w
i ,n1 + 2

i ,n1 +3

i ,n1 +n2 +2

...
+w

u (k ) + ... + w

+w

y(k 1) + ... + w

i ,n1 + n2 +...+ n p1 + p

i ,n1 + n2 +...+ n p + p+1

i ,n1 +n2 +...+n p + p

i ,n1 +1

i ,n1 + n2 +...+n p +ny + p

1500

u (k n ) + ...
p

u (k n ) + ...

1000

y(k n )) (u
y

~y
where i is the output of i-th local linear model (LLM),
u L = [ u1 (k ), u1 (k 1), ... , u1 (k n1 ), u2 (k ), ...

u p (k n p ), y (k 1), ... , y (k n y )

, (1)

Damper force [N]

i =1

500

]T

-500

i (u L ) is the validity function for

T
i-th LLM, w = [ wi , 0 , wi ,1 , ... , wi , n1 + n2 +...+ n p + n y + p ] are the

is the vector of inputs,

1.5
2
time [ms]

2.5

3.5
4
x 10

Fig. 1 Model identification training signal

700

process
model
error

600
500
400
Damper force [N]

parameters of i-th LLM, and M is the number LLMs. The

vector of the inputs generally contains not only actual dynamic
system inputs but also previous values of inputs and also the
previous values of the output to reflect the dynamic order of
the system. The normalized orthogonal Gaussian functions are
chosen as the validity functions.
The usage of dynamic nonlinear LOLI models for long
time simulation brings typically serious stability problems.
They are mainly suitable for predictive models working online in regulators with relatively short time horizon. This is the
reason for static identification (input and output quantities are
taken only in actual time point) presented within the paper.

0.5

300
200
100
0
-100

III. PHENOMENOLOGICAL NEURO-FUZZY MODEL OF DAMPER

-200
1.8

Fig. 2 Approximation

2.2
time [ms]

2.4

2.6
4
x 10

F = Fd (v) for low frequencies

2000

process
model
error

1500

Damper force [N]

The LOLIMOT algorithm enables systematic creation of

the generalized version of the phenomenological models
proposed in [5] and especially in [4] as so called global
damper characteristics. The global damper characteristics is
given by general static multi-dimensional dependency of
damper force as a function of damper kinematical quantities.
The used training signal is given in Fig. 1. It consists on
harmonic excitations with frequency from 0.1 Hz to 10 Hz
with different amplitudes typical for damper working
circumstances. The velocity and acceleration are reconstructed
from the length measurement. This is the reason why the
stochastic excitation has been omitted for the time being. The
complexity of the model can be controlled by the setting of the
input space splitting into sub-regions as mentioned in
paragraph III. The 20 splitting sub-regions have been used
(Fig. 5) based on experiments. Further splitting brings only
small improvement of error between model and experiment
results.

1000

500

-500

-1000
3.62

3.64

3.66
3.68
time [ms]

Fig. 3 Inferior properties of

3.7

3.72
4
x 10

F = Fd (v) for 10 Hz

BULLETIN OF APPLIED MECHANICS 4(15), 88-91 (2008)

within the simulation model. The problem of its
straightforward implementation consists in the significance of
the relative acceleration input as shown in the previous

2000
process
model
error

Damper force [N]

1500

chapter. The dependency

Fd (v, a ) is recommended also by

other mentioned authors [5], [4], nevertheless the problem of

model usage for simulation remains unanswered. The
dependency cant be implemented directly to Newton Euler
equations of mechanisms because of acceleration on both sides
of equations. First the acceleration must be resolved from the
basically implicit equations in order to preserve causality of
differential equations solution.

1000

500

-500

-1000
3.62

3.64

3.66
3.68
time [ms]

Fig. 4 Approximation

3.7

3.72
4
x 10

F = Fd (v, a ) for 10 Hz

12

x 10

F=F(v)
F=F(l,v)
F=F(v,a)
F=F(l,v,a)

10

Fig. 6 Quarter car model with damper

Overall error

The simulation model implementation has been tested on

the quarter car model of vehicle suspension. The basic
equations for sprung and unsprung masses (Fig. 6) are

m2 &z&2 = Fd ( z& 2 z&1 , &z&2 &z&1 ) k12 ( z 2 z1 ) (2)

m1 &z&1 = Fd ( z& 2 z&1 , &z&2 &z&1 ) + k12 ( z 2 z1 ) k 01 ( z1 z 0 ).

0
0

10

15

20

The acceleration of the system centroid is influenced only by

external forces

(m1 + m2 )&z&S = k 01 ( z1 z 0 ) ,

splitting

Fig. 5 Dependency of overall model error for different

approximations

(m1 + m2 ) &z&S = m1 &z&1 + m2 &z&2 . The relative damper

acceleration is given as &l& = &z& &z& and from (2) can be
where

The figures show, that the superior LOLIMOT static

approximation is reached using the velocity and acceleration
inputs together (Fig. 4). The addition of the length
(F = Fd (l , v, a) ) doesnt significantly improve the response
quality (Fig. 5). The further model response refinement can be
obtained using direct acceleration measurement. For the time
being the acceleration has been reconstructed from the length
measurement, which isnt optimum. The pure velocity
approximation (Fig. 2, Fig. 3) completely fails especially for
the higher excitation frequencies (see 10 Hz case in Fig. 3),
where the hysteresis is very significant.

The main target of the prepared damper model is its usage

written as

&l& = 1 + 1
d
m m
2
1
k (z z0 )
+ 01 1
.
m1

Fd (l&d , &l&d ) + k12 ( z 2 z1 ) +

(4)

The system dynamics can be alternatively described by

centroid acceleration

&z&S and the relative damper acceleration

&l& , which must be resolved from the implicit nonlinear

d
dynamic equation.

IV. CAUSAL IMPLEMENTATION OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL MODEL

(3)

BULLETIN OF APPLIED MECHANICS 4(15), 88-91 (2008)

1
1

Fd (l&d , &l&d ) + k12 ( z 2 z1 ) + &l&d

+
m
m
2
1
(5)
k 01 ( z1 z 0 )

=0.
m1
After resolving &l&d the differential equations can be integrated
either in &z& and &l& or in mass accelerations
S

&z&2 = &z&S +

m1 &&
m2 &&
ld , &z&1 = &z&S
ld . The example
m1 + m2
m1 + m2

of simulation results for 2Hz and 5 Hz road excitations of

quarter car model are in Fig.7 and Fig. 8.

250
200
150

V. CONCLUSION
The phenomenological shock absorber model has been
created using the neuro-fuzzy identification algorithm
LOLIMOT. The models have been identified based on the
experimental data obtained by hydraulic stand tests with
standard passenger car damper. The different variants of
model input structure have been tested. The damper force of
the final model depends statically on relative velocity and
relative acceleration inputs. The model structure corresponds
to so called global damper characteristics known from the
literature. The usage of LOLIMOT identification brings the
possibility of automated model training and testing. The static
variant of identification has been chosen because of instability
danger of dynamic neuro-fuzzy models used for long time
simulations. The further model refinement can be obtained
using direct acceleration measurement. The identified model
has been implemented into simulation model of the car
suspension. The acceleration is resolved from the implicit
nonlinear equations in order to preserve causality of
differential equations solution. The presented methodology
will be further extended for controllable shock absorbers.

100

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
50

-50

The authors appreciate the support by the project Algorithms

for computer simulation and application in engineering
MSM 6840770003.

-100

REFERENCES

[1]

-150
-0.06

-0.04

-0.02

0
dld/dt

0.02

0.04

0.06

Fig. 7 Damper simulation for 2 Hz 5 mm road profile

800

600

400

200

-200

-400
-0.3

-0.2

-0.1

0.1

0.2

dl /dt
d

Fig. 8 Damper simulation for 5 Hz 5 mm road profile

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