zilletti09-COLLOQUE

The active control of vibration on large structures requires multiple actuators and sensors. The complexity of such a control system scales linearly with the number of actuators and sensors if these are arranged in collocated pairs and controlled using only local, decentralised, feedback. Although the use of such a modular approach to active control has several attractions, to provide good performance they must be able to self-tune their feedback gain to adapt to the environment they find themselves in. The presentation is focused on the realisation of an active vibration control system using multiple local velocity feedback control loops. A simple approach is proposed to automatically tune the feedback gains in such a way that the frequency-averaged response to broadband random excitation is reduced. The self-tuning of each control feedback loop is based on the maximisation of their power absorbed estimated from the velocity measured signal. The maximisation of power absorbed, which requires only local measurements, provides a good approximation to the minimisation of the overall kinetic energy of a structure, corresponding to its global response. In the last part, the experimental set-up of the control system implemented on a panel using reactive actuators will be discussed.