Decentralized and distributed MIMO H-infinity robust control of vibration suppression of planar structures

Distributed control is nowadays a very active field of research, thanks to potential applications which require high scalability and reliability. The paper deals with the optimization of active vibration suppression of the planar flexible systems equipped by regular and dense matrix of multiple sensors and actuators. The H-infinity design with predefined controller structure has been chosen as an appropriate control method. At first, performance of H-infinity regulator was experimentally tested on simple beam demonstrator with piezoelectric patches as sensors and actuators. The simulation model of larger planar demonstrator has been firstly modelled by FEM and then exported into the state space form. Decentralized and distributed control laws have been investigated. The feasibility of attenuation of a large set of flexible modes has been demonstrated for the model of the demonstrator. The demonstrator itself has been prepared for the ongoing experiments. The possibility of alternative actuation by clusters of actuators has been also analyzed.