This paper presents a nonlinear control design approach for active suspensions based on the backstepping method with a special class of control Lyaponov functions. This approach is shown to yield a good performance and to allow an easy tuning of the trade-off between safety and comfort, a strong asset in order to simplify the experimental tuning work required in the vehicle development process. The paper presents the methods and conditions for the simplified tuning to be possible. Different road profiles are used to test the method, and the results are presented at the end of the paper, confirming the validity of the approach. © 2010 IFAC.