Experimental evaluation of a piezoelectric vibration absorber using a simplified fuzzy controller in a cantilever beam

This study presents a novel resonant fuzzy logic controller (FLC) to minimize structural vibration using collocated piezoelectric actuator/sensor pairs. The proposed fuzzy controller increases the damping of the structures to minimize certain resonant responses. The vibration absorber is first experimentally examined by a cantilever beam test bed for impulse and near-resonant excitation cases. Moreover, the effectiveness of the new fuzzy control design to a state-of-the-art control scheme is compared through the experimental studies. The experimental results indicate the proposed controller is highly promising for this application field. Our results further demonstrate that the fuzzy approach is much better than traditional control methods. In summary, a novel vibration absorption scheme using fuzzy logic has been demonstrated to significantly enhance the performance of a flexible structure with resonant response.