Surface vehicle vertical trajectory planning
View Patent ↗An active suspension system for a vehicle including elements for developing and executing a trajectory plan responsive to the path on which the vehicle is traveling. The system may include a location system for locating the vehicle, and a system for retrieving a road profile corresponding to the vehicle location.
1. Apparatus for use in a surface vehicle operating on a path, said path comprising vertical disturbances, said apparatus comprising:
a controllable suspension for actively suspending a payload with respect to a vertical disturbance input, and;
a trajectory developing system operatively coupled to said controllable suspension, said
trajectory developing system for developing a trajectory plan responsive to data specifically representative of said vertical disturbances.
2. Apparatus in accordance with claim 1 , wherein said data is expressed as one of force, velocity, and acceleration.
3. Apparatus in accordance with claim 1 , wherein said trajectory developing system comprises a device for smoothing said data to develop said trajectory plan.
4. Apparatus in accordance with claim 3 , wherein said smoothing device comprises a low pass filter.
5. Apparatus in accordance with claim 3 , wherein said smoothing device comprises a bi-directional low pass filter.
6. Apparatus in accordance with claim 1 , said controllable suspension comprises a linear actuator.
7. Apparatus in accordance with claim 1 , wherein said data comprises positive and negative values.
8. Apparatus in accordance with claim 1 , further comprising:
a profile storage device for storing said data.
9. Apparatus in accordance with claim 8 wherein said profile storage device is located remotely from said surface vehicle.
10. Apparatus in accordance with claim 8 , wherein said trajectory plan developing system is located remotely from said surface vehicle.