Optimal collocated control of a smart antenna

A technique for designing H₂-optimal control laws is developed and applied to the vibration suppression of a flexible structure. The technique has advantages over previously developed methods because the optimization is convex and the formulation allows for frequency-dependent weights to be included in the design. Weighing enables the controller to be tuned to suppress vibrations in certain frequency regions. Dereverberated structural models are used in the control design, reducing the order of the optimal compensator and improving the convergence of the optimization. The technique is applied to the control of a flexible antenna model. H₂-optimal controllers that target the low frequencies achieve as much as a 41% reduction in the RMS response of the structure over the frequency range 0-50 Hz. Controllers tuned to the higher frequencies achieve a more balanced reduction of 19% over 0-50 Hz and 15% over 50-150 Hz