Estimation of harvestable green energy from vehicle suspension

Abstract

This paper presents results of an experiment to estimate the harvestable green energy from vehicle suspension. In phase I, the integrated vehicle suspension is modeled and simulated using Matlab/Simulink. In phase II, real-time vibration data, from the vehicle suspension, was collected using a suspension travel sensor/data acquisition system. In phase III, the collected vibration-data is then used as the input to the simulink suspension model to estimate the harvestable energy per hour of driving. The estimated energy was around 2000 watt-hours per hour of driving. In phase IV with various case studies, it is observed that one can extract more energy in the city driving than the highway driving. The paper details the modeling and simulation of the vehicle suspension; the experimental setup to collect the real-time vibration-data; and finally presents analysis results in graphical format including: the actual vibration, the forces acting on the front and back suspensions, and last the harvested energy in watt-hours with time. And finally the potential for this energy is compared to the traditional regenerative energy in an electric vehicle is discussed.