A two-degree-of-freedom quarter-car model is used as the basis for LQ and the proposed controller design for a semi-active suspension. The LQ controller results in the best rms performance trade-offs(as defined by performance index) between ride, handling and packaging requirements. In LQ controller, however, the conflict between road holding and ride comfort remains. The adaptive semi-active suspension control based on the road frequency are introduced in this paper. With this method, the trade-off between road holding and ride comfort can be relaxed. The road frequency is estimated by wavelet transform if rattle space signal. The simulation results show that the proposed controller is superior to the conventional LQ controller.