Passive-active vibration isolation systems to produce zero or infinite dynamic modulus: theoretical and conceptual design strategies

The application of mechanical springs connected in parallel and/or in series with active springs can produce dynamical systems characterised by infinite or zero value stiffness. This mathematical model is extended to more general cases by examining the dynamic modulus associated with damping, stiffness and mass effects. This produces a theoretical basis on which to design an isolation system with infinite or zero dynamic modulus, such that stiffness and damping may have infinite or zero values. Several theoretical designs using a mixture of passive and active systems connected in parallel and/or in series are proposed to overcome limitations of feedback gain experienced in practice to achieve an infinite or zero dynamic modulus. It is shown that such systems can be developed to reduce the weight supported by active actuators as demonstrated, for example, by examining suspension systems of very low natural frequency or with a very large supporting stiffness or with a viscous damper or a self-excited vibration oscillator. A more general system is created by combining these individual systems allowing adjustment of the supporting stiffness and damping using both displacement and velocity feedback controls. Frequency response curves show the effects of active feedback control on the dynamical behaviour of these systems. The theoretical design strategies presented can be applied to design feasible hybrid vibration control systems displaying increased control performance.     

Self-powered active vibration control using a single electric actuator

The authors have proposed self-powered active vibration control systems that achieve active vibration control using regenerated vibration energy. Such systems do not require external energy to produce a control force. This paper presents a self-powered system in which a single actuator realizes active control and energy regeneration.The system proposed needs to regenerate more energy than it consumes. To discuss the feasibility of this system, the authors proposed a method to calculate the balance between regenerated and consumed energies, using the dynamical property of the system, the feedback gain of the active controller, the specifications of the actuator, and the power spectral density of disturbance. A trade-off was found between the performance of the active controller and the energy balance. The feedback gain of the active controller is designed to have good suppression performance under conditions where regenerated energy exceeds consumed energy.A practical system to achieve self-powered active vibration control is proposed. In the system, the actuator is connected to the condenser through relay switches, which decide the direction of the electric current, and a variable resistor, which controls the amount of the electric current. Performance of the self-powered active vibration was examined in experiments; the results showed that the proposed system can produce the desired control force with regenerated energy, and that it had a suppression performance similar to that of an active control system using external energy. It was found that self-powered active control is attainable under conditions obtained through energy balance analysis.     

Optimisation of a velocity feedback controller to minimise kinetic energy and maximise power dissipation

In this study the active vibration control of a structure modelled as a single degree of freedom system and excited by a white noise force is considered. The control system consists of an inertial actuator driven with a signal proportional to the velocity of the structure under control measured by an ideal collocated sensor. The optimisation of the physical and control parameters of the control system such as the internal damping of the actuator, its natural frequency and the feedback gain of the controller are considered such that either the kinetic energy of the host structure is minimised or the power dissipated by the control system is maximised. This type of control system is only conditionally stable therefore a stability condition has to be satisfied by the optimisation process. The paper shows that the two optimisation criteria are equivalent.     

Active vibration control using optimized modified acceleration feedback with Adaptive Line Enhancer for frequency tracking

Modified acceleration feedback (MAF) control, an active vibration control method that uses collocated piezoelectric actuators and accelerometer is developed and its gains optimized using an optimal controller. The control system consists of two main parts: (1) frequency adaptation that uses Adaptive Line Enhancer (ALE) and (2) an optimized controller. Frequency adaptation method tracks the frequency of vibrations using ALE. The obtained frequency is then fed to MAF compensators. This provides a unique feature for MAF, by extending its domain of capabilities from controlling a certain mode of vibrations to any excited mode. The optimized MAF controller can provide optimal sets of gains for a wide range of frequencies, based on the characteristics of the system. The experimental results show that the frequency tracking method works quite well and fast enough to be used in a real-time controller. ALE parameters are numerically and experimentally investigated and tuned for optimized frequency tracking. The results also indicate that the MAF can provide significant vibration reduction using the optimized controller. The control power varies for vibration suppression at different resonance frequencies; however, it is always optimized.     

Multifunctional design of inertially-actuated velocity feedback controllers

The vibration of a structure can be controlled using either a passive tuned mass damper or using an active vibration control system. In this paper, the design of a multifunctional system is discussed, which uses an inertial actuator as both a tuned mass damper and as an element in a velocity feedback control loop. The natural frequency of the actuator would normally need to be well below that of the structure under control to give a stable velocity feedback controller, whereas it needs to be close to the natural frequency of a dominant structural resonance to act as an effective tuned mass damper. A compensator is used in the feedback controller here to allow stable feedback operation even when the actuator natural frequency is close to that of a structural mode. A practical example of such a compensator is described for a small inertial actuator, which is then used to actively control the vibrations both on a panel and on a beam. The influence of the actuator as a passive tuned mass damper can be clearly seen before the feedback loop is closed, and broadband damping is then additionally achieved by closing the velocity feedback loop.     

Active isolation of a flexible structure from base vibration

This paper presents a theoretical and experimental investigation into an active vibration isolation system. Electromagnetic actuators are installed in parallel with each of four passive mounts, which are placed between a flexible equipment structure and a base structure which is either flexible or rigid. Isolation of low-frequency vibration is studied, so that the passive mounts can be modelled as lumped parameter springs and dampers. Decentralized velocity feedback control is employed, where each actuator is operated independently by feeding back the absolute equipment velocity at the same location. Good control and robust stability have been obtained both theoretically and experimentally for the multichannel control systems. This is to be expected if the base structure is rigid, in which case the actuator and sensor are, in principle, collocated and the control system implements a skyhook damper. With a flexible base structure, however, collocation is lost due to the reactive actuator force acting on the base structure, but the control system is still found to be robustly stable and to perform well. Attenuations of 20 dB are obtained in the sum of squared velocities on the equipment structure at the rigid-body mounted resonance frequencies. In addition, attenuations of up to 15 dB are obtained at the resonance frequencies of both the low order flexible modes of the base structure and the equipment structure.     

Active vibration control for structural-acoustic coupling system of a 3-D vehicle cabin model

This paper presents an active vibration control system for use with structural-acoustic coupling system using piezoelectric actuators and piezoelectric sensors. For modelling a complicated 3-D vehicle cabin model, the structural-acoustic coupling system is analyzed by combining the structural data from modal testing with the acoustic data from the finite element method. Through the structural-acoustic analysis program, the control plate and the control modes are selected, which are most effective for attenuating its noise. A robust LQG controller with two sensor signal filters is designed to remove the experimental problems such as the spillover effect due to uncontrolled modes. The robust LQG controller for the structural-acoustic coupling system can reduce the interior noise of the cavity as well as the structural vibration of the cabin.     

A modeling technique for active control design studies with application to spacecraft microvibrations

Microvibrations, at frequencies between 1 and 1000 Hz, generated by on board equipment, can propagate throughout a spacecraft structure and affect the performance of sensitive payloads. To investigate strategies to reduce these dynamic disturbances by means of active control systems, realistic yet simple structural models are necessary to represent the dynamics of the electromechanical system. In this paper a modeling technique which meets this requirement is presented, and the resulting mathematical model is used to develop some initial results on active control strategies. Attention is focused on a mass loaded panel subjected to point excitation sources, the objective being to minimize the displacement at an arbitrary output location. Piezoelectric patches acting as sensors and actuators are employed. The equations of motion are derived by using Lagrange's equation with vibration mode shapes as the Ritz functions. The number of sensors/actuators and their location is variable. The set of equations obtained is then transformed into state variables and some initial controller design studies are undertaken. These are based on standard linear systems optimal control theory where the resulting controller is implemented by a state observer. It is demonstrated that the proposed modeling technique is a feasible realistic basis for in-depth controller design/evaluation studies.     

An inverse model of MR damper using optimal neural network and system identification

Magnetorheological (MR) damper is one of the more promising new devices for vibration control of structures. External energy required by the adjustable fluid damper is minuscule while speed of its response is in the order of milliseconds. The MR damper is a semi-active control device and has been characterized by a set of non-linear differential equations which represent a forward model of the MR damper, i.e., the model can generate a force to a given displacement and applied voltage.This paper presents an inverse model of the MR damper, i.e., the model can predict the required voltage so that the MR damper can produce the desired force for the requirement of vibration control of structures. The inverse model has been constructed by using a multi-layer perceptron optimal neural network and system identification, which are Gauss-Newton-based Levenberg-Marquardt training algorithm, optimal brain surgeon strategy and autoregressive with exogenous variables (ARX) model. Based on the data from numerical simulation of the MR damper, the trained optimal neural networks can accurately predict voltage. If the inverse model is used in a control system, the semi-active vibration control can be implemented easily by using the semi-active MR damper.     

Global optimization of distributed output feedback controllers

When the frequency range over which a reduction in vibration is desired is limited to a particular structural mode of vibration, for example, it is shown that a centralized velocity feedback controller can perform better than a decentralized controller for a given level of control effort. The decentralized controller, however, has the desirable properties of scalability and ease of implementation. A number of strategies for clustering the control locations have been proposed to exploit both the performance of the centralized controller and the scalability of decentralized controllers but these have previously been only locally optimal. This paper describes methods by which these distributed controllers may be designed to be globally optimal and gives examples of simulated results of these optimal distributed controllers.     

Network-based modelling and active control for offshore steel jacket platform with TMD mechanisms

The network-based modelling and active control for an offshore steel jacket platform with an active tuned mass damper mechanism is investigated. A network-based dynamic model of the offshore platform is first established. A network-based state feedback control scheme is developed. Under this scheme, the corresponding closed-loop system is modelled by a system with an artificial interval time-varying delay. Then, a delay-dependent stability criterion for the corresponding closed-loop system is derived. Based on this stability criterion, a sufficient condition on the existence of the network-based controller is obtained. It is found through simulation results that (i) both the oscillation amplitudes of the offshore platform and the required control force under the network-based state feedback controller are smaller than those under the nonlinear controller and the dynamic output feedback controller; (ii) the oscillation amplitudes of the offshore steel jacket platform under the network-based feedback controller are almost the same as the ones under the integral sliding mode controller, while the required control force by the former is smaller than the one by the latter.     

Multi-objective control optimization for semi-active vehicle suspensions

In this paper we demonstrate a method for determining the optimality of control algorithms based on multiple performance objectives. While the approach is applicable to a broad range of dynamic systems, this paper focuses on the control of semi-active vehicle suspensions. The two performance objectives considered are ride quality, as measured by absorbed power, and thermal performance, as measured by power dissipated in the suspension damper. A multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) is used to establish the limits of controller performance. To facilitate convergence, the MOGA is initialized with popular algorithms such as skyhook control, feedback linearization, and sliding mode control. The MOGA creates a Pareto frontier of solutions, providing a benchmark for assessing the performance of other controllers in terms of both objectives. Furthermore, the MOGA provides insight into the remaining achievable gains in performance.     

Model independent control of lightly damped noise/vibration systems

Feedforward control is a popular strategy of active noise/vibration control. In well-damped noise/vibration systems, path transfer functions from actuators to sensors can be modeled by finite impulse response (FIR) filters with negligible errors. It is possible to implement noninvasive model independent feedforward control by a recently proposed method called orthogonal adaptation. In lightly damped noise/vibration systems, however, path transfer functions have infinite impulse responses (IIRs) that cause difficulties in design and implementation of broadband feedforward controllers. A major source of difficulties is model error if IIR path transfer functions are approximated by FIR filters. In general, active control performance deteriorates as model error increases. In this study, a new method is proposed to design and implement model independent feedforward controllers for broadband in lightly damped noise/vibration systems. It is shown analytically that the proposed method is able to drive the convergence of a noninvasive model independent feedforward controller to improve broadband control in lightly damped noise/vibration systems. The controller is optimized in the minimum H2 norm sense. Experiment results are presented to verify the analytical results.     

Proportional-plus-integral semiactive control using magnetorheological dampers

Magnetorheological (MR) dampers are a promising alternative to structural active actuators as they provide adjustable damping over a wide range of frequencies without large power requirements. However, the complex dynamics that characterizes these devices makes it difficult to formulate control laws based on the MR damper model. Instead, many semiactive control strategies proposed in the literature have been based on the idea of “clipping” the voltage signal so that the MR damper force “tracks” a desired active control force which is computed on-line. With this idea many algorithms have been proposed using, among others, techniques such as optimal control, H_∞ control, sliding mode control, backstepping and QFT.This work presents a semiactive control strategy based on the same idea of “clipping” the voltage signal but using a simpler PI design. The proportional and integral gains of the controller are calculated so that the controller guarantees stability, minimization of the closed loop response and robustness against modeling errors. Effectiveness of the control strategy is compared to some others techniques and passive cases as well. Simulation results shows that this simple strategy can effectively improve the structural responses and achieve performance index comparable to that of more complex algorithms.     

Integrated design of piezoelectric damping system for flexible structure

This paper aims at developing an integrated design method of the active/passive hybrid type of piezoelectric damping system for reducing the dynamic response of the flexible structures due to external dynamic loads. The design method is based on the numerical optimization technique whose objective function is a control effort of the active damping. A vibration suppression performance, which is evaluated by the maximum value of the gain of the frequency response function of the structure, is constrained. In order to demonstrate the structural damping capability of the hybrid type of piezoelectric damping system designed by proposed method, numerical simulation and laboratory experiment will be done using a three-story flexible structure model equipped with 12 surface bonded PZT tiles pairs. Both numerical and experimental results indicate that the optimally designed hybrid piezoelectric damping system can be successfully achieving excellent performance as compared to a conventional purely active piezoelectric damping system.     

OPTIMAL CONTROL METHOD WITH TIME DELAY IN CONTROL

Optimal control method for active vibration control of linear time-delay systems is investigated in this paper. In terms of two cases that time delay is integer and non-integer times of sampling period, motion equation with time delay is transformed as standard discrete forms which contain no time delay by using zero order holder respectively. Discrete quadratic function is used as objective function in design of controller to guarantee good control efficiency on sampling points. In every step of computation of the deduced controller, it contains not only current step of state feedback but also linear combination of some former steps of control. Because the controller is deduced directly from time-delay differential equation, system stability can be guaranteed easily, thus this method is generally applicable to ordinary control systems. The performance of the control method proposed and system stability when using this method are all demonstrated by numerical simulation results. Simulation results demonstrate that the presented method is a viable and attractive control strategy for applications to active vibration control. Instability in responses occurs possibly if the systems with time delay are controlled using controller designed in case of no time delay.     

Cable connected active tuned mass dampers for control of in-plane vibrations of wind turbine blades

In-plane vibrations of wind turbine blades are of concern in modern multi-megawatt wind turbines. Today?s turbines with capacities of up to 7.5 MW have very large, flexible blades. As blades have grown longer the increasing flexibility has led to vibration problems. Vibration of blades can reduce the power produced by the turbine and decrease the fatigue life of the turbine. In this paper a new active control strategy is designed and implemented to control the in-plane vibration of large wind turbine blades which in general is not aerodynamically damped. A cable connected active tuned mass damper (CCATMD) system is proposed for the mitigation of in-plane blade vibration. An Euler–Lagrangian wind turbine model based on energy formulation has been developed for this purpose which considers the structural dynamics of the system and the interaction between in-plane and out-of-plane vibrations and also the interaction between the blades and the tower including the CCATMDs. The CCATMDs are located inside the blades and are controlled by an LQR controller. The turbine is subject to turbulent aerodynamic loading simulated using a modification to the classic Blade Element Momentum (BEM) theory with turbulence generated from rotationally sampled spectra. The turbine is also subject to gravity loading. The effect of centrifugal stiffening of the rotating blades has also been considered. Results show that the use of the proposed new active control scheme significantly reduces the in-plane vibration of large, flexible wind turbine blades.     

Active control of friction-induced self-excited vibration using adaptive fuzzy systems

Vibration caused by friction is harmful to engineering systems. Understanding the mechanism of such a physical phenomenon and developing some strategies to effectively control the vibration have both theoretical and practical significance. Based on our previous work, this paper deals with a problem of active compensation control of friction-induced self-excited vibration using adaptive fuzzy systems. Comparative studies on control performance are carried out, where a class of adaptive compensation control schemes with various friction models are applied to control a motion dynamics with friction. It is observed that our proposed modeling and control techniques are powerful to eliminate the limit cycle and the steady-state error. Furthermore, robustness of the proposed controller with respect to external disturbances is discussed. Simulation results show that the active controller with adaptive fuzzy friction compensation outperforms other active controllers with compensation terms characterized by three well-known friction models.     

Active pneumatic vibration isolation system using negative stiffness structures for a vehicle seat

In this paper, an active pneumatic vibration isolation system using negative stiffness structures (NSS) for a vehicle seat in low excitation frequencies is proposed, which is named as an active system with NSS. Here, the negative stiffness structures (NSS) are used to minimize the vibratory attraction of a vehicle seat. Owing to the time-varying and nonlinear behavior of the proposed system, it is not easy to build an accurate dynamic for model-based controller design. Thus, an adaptive intelligent backstepping controller (AIBC) is designed to manage the system operation for high-isolation effectiveness. In addition, an auxiliary control effort is also introduced to eliminate the effect of the unpredictable perturbations. Moreover, a radial basis function neural network (RBFNN) model is utilized to estimate the optimal gain of the auxiliary control effort. Final control input and the adaptive law for updating coefficients of the approximate series can be obtained step by step using a suitable Lyapunov function. Afterward, the isolation performance of the proposed system is assessed experimentally. In addition, the effectiveness of the designed controller for the proposed system is also compared with that of the traditional backstepping controller (BC). The experimental results show that the isolation effectiveness of the proposed system is better than that of the active system without NSS. Furthermore, the undesirable chattering phenomenon in control effort is quite reduced by the estimation mechanism. Finally, some concluding remarks are given at the end of the paper.     

Sinusoidal reference strategy for adaptive feedforward vibration control: numerical simulation and experimental study

A new control approach named Sinusoidal Reference Strategy is developed for adaptive feedforward structural control. In this approach, the recursive-least-squares algorithm is used and a higher frequency sinusoidal signal is utilized as the reference signal. The present approach is able to overcome some of the shortcomings of the conventional adaptive feedforward control. Numerical simulations are then conducted on reducing wind-induced vibrations of the JIN MAO Building in Shanghai, China, with a height of 420 m. A multiple-degree-of-freedom (m.d.o.f.) aeroelastic model of a general super-tall building and an active mass damper (AMD) actuator are designed and manufactured. Wind tunnel tests are carried out to investigate further the control efficiency and robustness of the present approach. Both the simulation and experimental results show that the approach can reduce vibration of super-tall buildings remarkably, and can adapt to dynamic uncertainties and modelling errors of the buildings.