Despite of the fact that the first generation of active suspension systems are begging to appear on the market, the passive system is still to be found in the majority of current vehicles production. The aim of this paper is to quantify the ride behavior of the passive and active suspension systems. Different damping ratios for passive suspension are used and their effects on the system performance are studied. Linear control law is used for controlling the performance of active suspension systems based on full state and limited state feedbacks.

The results showed that, when the damping ratio is changed, the best ride comfort is gained at the expense of suspension working space (passive system). While, in case of active suspension system, a significant improvement in ride comfort and dynamic tyre load can be obtained depending on the state feedback used and the weighted parameters. Moreover, active systems, which are heavily weighted toward comfort, show a significant improvement in ride comfort at the expense of dynamic tyre load.