Approximate pole-placement controller using inverse plant dynamics for floor vibration control

Abstract

Past research and field trials have demonstrated the viability of active vibration control (AVC) technologies for the mitigation of human induced vibrations in problematic floors. They make use of smaller units than their passive counterparts, provide quicker and more efficient control, can tackle multiple modes of vibration simultaneously and adaptability can be introduced to enhance their robustness. Predominantly single-input-single-output (SISO) and multi-SISO collocated sensor and actuator pairs have been utilized in direct output feedback schemes, for example, with direct velocity feedback (DVF). On-going studies have extended such past works to include model-based control approaches, for example, pole-placement (PP), which demonstrate increased flexibility of achieving desired vibration mitigation performances but for which stability issues must be adequately addressed. The work presented here is an extension to the pole-placement controller design using an algebraic approach that has been investigated in past studies. An approximate pole-placement controller formulated via the inversion of the floor dynamics, considered as minimum phase, is designed to achieve target closed-loop performances. Analytical studies and experimental tests are based on a laboratory structure and comparisons in vibration mitigation performances are made with a typical DVF control scheme with inner loop actuator compensation. It is shown that with minimal compensation, primarily in the form of notch filters and gain adjustment, the approximate pole-placement controller scheme is easily formulated and implemented and offers good vibration mitigation performance as well as the potential for isolation and control of specific target modes of vibration. Predicted attenuations of 22dB and 12dB in both the first and second vibration modes of the laboratory structure were also realized in the experimental studies for DVF and the approximate PP controller. © 2013 SPIE.