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Suspension - Active Suspension: An extremely sophisticated, computer controlled Suspension system that uses powered actuators instead of conventional Springs and Shock Absorbers. The actuators position a car's wheels in the best possible manner to deal with road disturbances and handling loads.
In brief the operation is as follows;- each wheel is suspended by a pneumatic spring, this takes the form of a pressurized steel sphere containing a sealing rubber diaphram.

The unloaded static gas pressure is between about 400 and 800 psi. Under wheel load the gas is compressed by oil on the other side of the diaphram, this oil is displaced by a piston connected to the wheels.

Between this piston and the gas sphere is located the damper valve. Even if this was all there was to it, this would be a good basis for a very simple and elegant design of suspension unit. But the clever bit is that all four (one to each wheel ) such units are connected to a high pressure ( up to 2500 psi.), engine driven hydraulic pump.

Each unit has between itself and the pump, a ride-height sensing control valve. These valves allow fluid to flow into the units when they sense that the ride-height is too low, say due to an increase in vehicle load, an extra passenger for example. When the load is reduced the valves allow excess fluid to flow back to the supply tank. The pump is of small capacity and is also used to supply the brakes with their working fluid, as a result the response time for height correction is designed to be quite long, and so is only useful for long term load changes. For normal bump absorption and inertia generated loads ( braking or acceleration pitch and cornering roll ) the system operates as if the suspension was only provided by the pneumatic units, the 'active' part only coming into play to correct height errors due to changes in static loading. This will also keep the suspension frequencies constant.
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