Network-Based Active Vibration Control of Collocated Actuator/Sensor Structures via Consensus Positive Position Feedback

Vibration control in smart structures is discussed in this paper using an approach based on connecting collocated control elements to one another via a network with certain topology. Consensus method is implemented to force disagreements between the control agents of the structure to zero, where each control agent consists of a multi-mode Positive Position Feedback (PPF) second-order compensator. Multi-agent state-space representation of actuator/sensor elements is used, accompanied with an optimal state-estimator. The consensus law is embedded in the dynamics of the PPF control elements. Required conditions for stability of the closed-loop multi-agent system are then extracted. Performance of the controller is numerically investigated, and synchronization of controller agents is examined. Significant advantage of the decentralized consensus-based vibration controller over centralized forms is in robustness to failure of components or an entire agent, and obtained synchronized performance of the whole control system.