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It is widely anticipated that autonomous vehicles will offer increased productivity and convenience by freeing occupants from the responsibility of driving. However, studies indicate that the occurrence of motion sickness in autonomous vehicles will be substantially higher than in conventionally driven vehicles. Occupants of autonomous vehicles are more likely to be involved in performing tasks and activities, such as reading, writing and using a computer or tablet, that typically increase the occurrence of motion sickness. The authors present a novel high bandwidth active suspension system, GenShock®, and tailored control algorithms targeted toward mitigating motion sickness in autonomous vehicles. GenShock actuators can actively push and pull the wheels of a vehicle in order to keep the chassis level and reduce heave, pitch, and roll motion.

As commercial vehicles are propelled forward, their suspensions encounter road irregularities that deflect suspensions up and down. GenShock® was created to convert linear motion from suspension oscillations into usable electricity while actively controlling damping force. This paper investigates the available energy in the suspension of a Class 8 truck, characterizes the damper dynamics in a truck suspension system, and demonstrates the fuel efficiency gains from reducing electrical load on the alternator. Two generations of GenShock prototypes were built and tested, and the resulting power regeneration and adaptive damping control were demonstrated. By reducing alternator load on a Class 8 test truck, fuel consumption was correspondingly reduced. To investigate real-world benefits, suspension displacements were sampled during actual on-road travel to characterize a representative highway (I-75 between Detroit and Toledo) and were subsequently used as input for a system model.