Experimental application of orthogonal eigenstructure control for structural vibration cancellation

Orthogonal eigenstructure control (OEC) is a novel feedback control that is applicable to linear systems. Orthogonal eigenstructure control can minimizes the trial and error by the controller designer. It finds orthogonal vectors to some targeted modes of the structure within the achievable eigenvector set. When the targeted modes are replaced with the orthogonal vectors, it results in a decoupled system or structure that leads to vibration isolation. In this article, experimental application of this control method for active vibration cancellation of a plate is presented. Piezoelectric actuators are used as control actuators and accelerometers are used as feedback sensors. Vibration cancellation in a plate due to 150Hz sinusoidal disturbance and a wideband disturbance within the range 200–300Hz are experimentally studied. Since OEC is a model-based control method, system identification techniques are used for estimating the state-space realization of the system model. The effect of tuning the control gain is studied to compensate for the inaccurate system identification or factors that cannot be identified easily but play a major role in vibration of a structure. A finite element model of a plate is considered and the effects of scaling the control gains are investigated. It is shown that there is an allowable region for tuning the control gain without loosing the stability. The result of this analysis is used in the experiment for adjusting the control gains. & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.