Active robust vibration control of flexible composite beams with parameter perturbations

In this paper, a time domain approach is presented to treat the problem of active controlling simultaneously the bending and torsional vibration of flexible composite beams under both mode truncations and parameter perturbations. In the proposed approach, the residual model, which is known as unstructured uncertainty, is viewed as an additive perturbation to the controlled model. Based on a state space model, which incorporates both bending and torsional deformation effects, of the flexible composite beam with piezoelectric sensors and actuators, a robust stability condition is derived to guarantee that both bending and torsional vibration of the flexible composite beam, which is subject to both mode truncation and linear time-varying parameter perturbations, can be actively controlled by an observer-based controller. The proposed robust stability condition gives an insight into the relationship between the stability margins of the controlled and residual mode subsystems, spillover effects and additive time-varying parameter perturbations. Finally, an active robust vibration control problem of a cantilevered flexible composite beam with piezoelectric sensors and actuators is provided for illustration.