Spatial control of flexible structures - application of spatial ℋ∞ control to a piezoelectric laminate beam

This paper describes the development of a feedback controller that suppresses vibration of flexible structures. The controller is designed to minimize the spatial ℋ_∞ norm of the closed-loop system. This technique guarantees average reduction of vibration throughout the entire structure. The controller is applied to a simply-supported piezoelectric laminate beam and is validated experimentally to show the effectiveness of the proposed controller in suppressing structural vibration. It is shown that the spatial ℋ _∞ control has an advantage over the pointwise ℋ _∞ control in minimizing the vibration of the entire structure. This spatial ℋ_∞ control methodology can also be applied to more general structural vibration suppression problems