Experimental Platform for Teaching Control of Automotive Suspension

An experimental platform of a Quarter of Vehicle model was developed to improve the teaching-learning system of the Dynamics of Vehicle course; specifically, the suspension control systems topic. A fully instrumented 1:5 scale prototype was connected to a dSpaceTM card and a Human Machine Interface (HMI) was implemented in Matlab/SimulinkTM. The HMI follows the Plug & Play philosophy that facilitates the design, implementation and validation of several control algorithms under different conditions. Early results show students obtained a better understanding by exploiting the Research based Learning approach, and stressing the practical application of what will be learned as a way to further motivate students.