Modal control of certain flexible dynamic systems: Estimates of residual mode effects

Interest has increased in the active control of vibrations in mechanically flexible systems, e.g. attitude control of flexible spacecraft, ride quality improvement of air and surface transportation, and active optics. To insure satisfactory performance of such systems, their distributed parameter nature must be taken into account in control system design. In this paper, we obtain feedback control of N modes of a flexible system described by a generalized wave equation and quantify the problem of control "spillover" into the uncontrolled modes. This paper summarizes results obtained in [1].