Vibration control of flexible structures with non-collocated piezoelectric transducers - Theory and experiment

Abstract

A parameter based controller is introduced to suppress the vibration of a flexible structure using noncollocated piezoelectric transducers, and the control system performance is studied via simulation and experiment. The control criterion is based on damping of the traveling waves in the sensing area, which consequently suppresses the flexural vibration. Contrary to the conventional non-collocated local wave absorbing controller (non-collocated LWAC), this controller uses not only local system parameters but also employs global system parameters such as the total length of the flexible structure and the absolute positions of the piezoelements. Thus we term it a non-collocated global wave absorbing controller (non-collocated GWAC). Controller gains can be obtained from a simple formula which depends on only the mechanical parameters of system such as E, I, p. It is shown that this controller is much better than conventional non-collocated local wave absorbing controllers. Experimental results demonstrate a good agreement with theory and also show that the controller is able to suppress vibrations quickly. The controller is easy to design and efficient in active control of flexible structures.