Semi-active control of magnetorheological damper system: A Lyapunov design

In this paper, the feasibility of using a magnetorheological (MR) fluid-based system for motion control is studied based on the hysteretic biviscous model of the MR damper. A feedback control system is designed to synchronize the motion of the two masses in a two degree of freedom spring-mass-damper system subject to an unknown disturbance. The controller performance is evaluated numerically. For the derivation of the control law, a quadratic Lyapunov function, which is a function of the relative position and velocity of two masses, is considered. The control input (current) is obtained by minimizing the derivative of the Lyapunov function along the trajectory of the system. In the computer simulation, it is observed that the controller is effective in synchronizing the two body motions.