A Multi-Agent Synchronization Control-Based Method for Determining Center-of-Mass Coordinates in Engineering Vehicles with Active Suspension

The center-of-mass (CoM) coordinates of engineering vehicles vary with payload mass, payload position, and upper-structure posture, whereas active suspension control systems commonly use fixed CoM parameters. To enable convenient CoM updating under different stable operating conditions, this study proposes a multi-agent synchronization control-based method for determining CoM coordinates in engineering vehicles equipped with active suspension. Each active suspension actuator is modeled as an agent, and a four-actuator multi-agent system with a distributed consensus controller is developed to improve displacement synchronization and reduce the influence of actuator asynchrony on vertical support-force identification. A CoM coordinate determination model is then established using the mass reaction method and mass-weighted averaging, so that the vehicle CoM can be recalculated after the vehicle enters a new stable operating condition. Simulations and full-vehicle experiments were conducted on a two-axle crane equipped with active suspension at boom posture angles of 0°, 10°, and 20°. Compared with test-bench reference measurements, the maximum coordinate errors were 10.51 mm, 4.85 mm, and 92.45 mm, respectively. The results indicate that the proposed method can provide CoM coordinates consistent with reference values under stable operating conditions and support control-parameter updating after changes in payload state or upper-structure posture.