Active Pulse Structural Control Using Artificial Neural Networks

Increasing interest has focused on applying active control systems to civil engineering structures subjected to dynamic loading. This study presents an active pulse control algorithm, termed the adaptive neural structural active pulse (ANSAP) controller, to control civil engineering structures under dynamic loading. The ANSAP controller minimizes structural cumulative responses during earthquakes by applying active pulse control forces. The effect of pulses is assumed to be delayed until just before the next sampling time so that the control force can be calculated in time and applied; the newly developed control strategy circumvents the effect of time delay due to the computation time. The ANSAP controller also circumvents the difficulty of obtaining system parameters of a real structure for the algorithm for active structural control. Illustrative examples reveal significant reductions in cumulative structural responses, which demonstrates the feasibility of using the adaptive artificial network for controlling civil engineering structures under dynamic loading.