Arrays of sensors and actuators designed to provide robust broadband feedback control with high performance and limited modeling are the subject of this paper. The reconfigurable array technique proposed here enables the design of reduced- order controllers for complex structures and offers the potential to improve closed-loop robustness and to broaden the region of good performance even as the plant changes. The weighted summation of sensor signals senses the modes that are relevant to performance while rejecting the remaining modes; therefore reducing the required complexity of the controller. These weights are obtained from the minimization of a cost function and under certain assumptions; it can be shown that a single optimum solution exists. The use of reconfigurable arrays is motivated by the need to control the vibration of complex structures. A thirty element collocated actuator and sensor array was bonded to a cylinder section. Array weights were computed and successfully applied to isolate target modes. Different methods of computing the weights are implemented and compared. The deleterious effects of spatial aliasing and the performance as a function of the array size are experimentally explored.

Date Published: 19 June 2000
PDF: 13 pages
Proc. SPIE 3984, Smart Structures and Materials 2000: Mathematics and Control in Smart Structures, (19 June 2000); doi: 10.1117/12.388798

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 3984:
Smart Structures and Materials 2000: Mathematics and Control in Smart Structures
Vasundara V. Varadan, Editor(s)