Unstructured uncertainty in transducer selection for multi-channel active control systems

An important question in the practical application of active control is how to choose the “best” set of positions for the actuators and sensors from a much larger number of possible locations. The “best” can be defined as the set which a fitness function maximisation should reflect both the performance achieved by the selected transducers in reducing the overall level of the sound or vibration, and also the robustness of this achieved performance in the face of realistic uncertainties in the plant response and primary disturbance. One of the objects of this study was to examine how to simply describe the changes which occur in the plant and disturbance in practice using unstructured uncertainty, and to investigate how the fitness function used to select transducer positions can be modified so that the performance of a tonal control system is least affected by these changes