An intelligent active-passive vibration absorber using hierarchical fuzzy approach

Abstract

It has been shown that piezoelectric materials can be used as highly promising for application such as passive electromechanical vibration absorbers by shunting them with electrical networks. However, these passive devices have limitations that restrict their practical applications. The main goal of this work is to develop a novel approach for achieving a high performance adaptive piezoelectric absorber - an active-passive hybrid configuration. Owing to adaptive capability of fuzzy inference systems, its applications to active control are immediate. This investigation addresses first application of concept of hierarchy for controlling fuzzy systems in such an active-passive absorber. One of main advantages of using a hierarchical fuzzy system is to minimize size of rule base by eliminating the curse of dimensionality. Although performance of optimal passive absorber is already much better than original system (no absorber), intelligent active-passive absorber can still outperform passive system significantly. The fuzzy control method appears quite useful as regards reliability and robustness.