Low-Complexity Decentralized Active Damping of One-Dimensional Structures

In the paper, we propose distributed feedback control laws for active damping of one-dimensional mechanical structures equipped with dense arrays of force actuators and position and velocity sensors. We consider proportional position and velocity feedback from the neighboring nodes with symmetric gains. Achievable control performance with respect to stability margin and damping ratio is discussed. Compared to full-featured complex controllers obtained by modern design methods like LQG, H-infinity, or mu-synthesis, these simplistic controllers are more suitable for experimental fine tuning and are less case-dependent, and they shall be easier to implement on the target future smart-material platforms.