Frequency Domain Control of Flexible Beams With Piezoelectric Actuator

One of the challenges in structural control is to apply successfully the control law derived from a discrete, reduced-order model to the engineering system of much higher order. Spillover associated with discrete system modeling has been known to lead to closed loop system instability. This paper presents a frequency domain stability criterion for the high/low-authority controller design of flexible beam systems in distributed parameter model. It is shown that the poles of a slewing beam system can be categorized in two groups: one from those of a cantilever beam and the other from those of a high-authority control slewing beam. Stability analysis can thus be conducted in each group independently. Application of piezoelectric actuator is shown to be effective in the vibration control of a slewing beam system. Neither distributed sensing/estimation nor functional gain calculation is required. Furthermore, the spillover problem can be prevented.