Active suspension for a vehicle controlling body for combination of bounce and pitch based on height sensor signals

Claim 1

An active suspension for a vehicle having a vehicle body, a front right wheel, a front left wheel, a rear right wheel, and a rear left wheel, comprising: a plurality of cylinder-piston type actuators, each producing a supporting force for supporting the vehicle body with respect to each corresponding one of said wheels; a plurality of vehicle height detection means detecting vehicle heights Hfr, Hfl, Hrr and Hrl of portions of the vehicle body corresponding to the front right wheel, the front left wheel, the rear right wheel, and the rear left wheel; and a calculation control device which inputs signals from said vehicle height detection means, calculates based on these signals a bounce amount B and a pitch amount P with respect to a road surface from a standard state of the vehicle body according to: B=Kb (Hfr+Hfl+Hrr+Hrl=4 H) P=Kp (Hrr+Hrl)-(Hfr+Hfl) where Kb and Kp are positive coefficients, and H is the mean value of standard vehicle heights of said portions of the vehicle body corresponding to said respective wheels at the standard state of the vehicle body, calculates based on said amount B and P a necessary supporting force for said actuators necessary to reduce the bounce and the pitch amount, and controls said actuators based on the necessary supporting force to increase or decrease the force acting between the wheels and the vehicle body through the actuators.