Development of height adjustment system for vehicle slow attitude control

Under the general context of Energy conservation and emission reduction, vehicles' fuel consumption and emission reduction become more and more important since the road transport is responsible for about 20% of carbon dioxide emissions. Except weight reduction, minimizing of the aerodynamic drag is also very important since it offers valuable benefits regarding to the fuel consumptions and carbon dioxide emissions. The height adjustment of the vehicle height is an effective way to reduce aerodynamic resistance and at the mean time introducing versatility to the vehicle, for example, off road uses. The aim of this thesis is to present in a systematic way to current existing solutions of different types of height adjustment systems for passenger cars, summarizing the main features, working principles and the architectures. Particular attention is then focused on the electromechanical type, which represent the perfect combination of functionality and cost. A design of Eccentric Height-adjustable System including the working principle and the description of designed prototype is presented. Then the test rig has set up and the accelerated experiments have been proceeded. The electromechanical height adjustment system has been improved time over time based on the experimental results that having been studied. Failures and improvements are represented with the implementation of the Failure Mode and Effects Analysis methodology. At the end, the possible improvements and future work are represented.