Your car would be unbearable to drive without its suspension. You'd likely need a chiropractic appointment by the time you made it out of your neighborhood. Not only does a suspension support (or suspend) the weight of a vehicle, it keeps body movements under control when you hit a bump and improves ride quality by isolating the vehicle from road imperfections. Load-bearing duty typically falls on steel or composite coil or leaf springs, but there are better solutions. What if instead of riding on flexible metal or plastic, a vehicle could be riding on air?
How Do Air Suspensions Work?
In the case of an air-suspended vehicle, those coil springs or leaf springs are swapped for pressurized flexible rubber bellows called air springs. An air spring at each corner is monitored by the vehicle for internal air pressure and ride height. With help from an onboard compressor, air dryer, and air reservoir, the air pressure (which determines the equivalent spring rate) and ride height can be adjusted to provide optimal ride quality and ground clearance for the task at hand.
The idea for air suspension has been around nearly as long as the automobile; a "Pneumatic Spring for Vehicles" was patented in 1901. It was utilized by the U.S. military in World War II on heavy trucks to maintain ride height independent of vehicle load. By the late 1950s, air suspension was standard equipment on the Cadillac Eldorado Brougham, and today the tech is near ubiquitous on high-end luxury cars.