DISTRIBUTIVE VIBRATION CONTROL IN FLEXIBLE MULTIBODY DYNAMICS

A distributive neural control system is advocated for flexible multibo dy structures. The proposed neural controller is designed to achieve t rajectory slewing of a structural member as well as vibration suppress ion for precision pointing capability. The motivation to support such an innovation is to pursue a real-time implementation of a robust and fault tolerant structural controller. The proposed control architectur e which takes advantage of the geometric distribution of piezoceramic sensors and actuators has provided a tremendous freedom from computati onal complexity. In the spirit of model reference adaptive control, we utilize adaptive time-delay radial basis function networks as a build ing block to allow the neural network to function as an indirect close d-loop controller. The horizon-of-one predictive controller cooperativ ely regulates the dynamics of the nonlinear structure to follow the pr especified reference models asymptotically. The proposed control strat egy is validated in the experimental facility, called the planar artic ulating controls experiment which consists of a two-link flexible plan ar structure constrained to move over a granite table. This paper addr esses the theoretical foundation of the architecture and demonstrates its applicability via a realistic structural test bed. Copyright (C) 1 996 Elsevier Science Ltd.