ACTIVE BOUNDARY CONTROL OF ELASTIC CABLES - THEORY AND EXPERIMENT

Cables are lightweight structural elements used in a variety of engine ering applications. In this paper an active boundary control system is introduced that damps undesirable vibrations in a cable. Using Hamilt on's principle, the governing non-linear partial differential equation s for an elastic cable are derived, including the natural boundary con ditions associated with boundary force control. Based on Lyapunov theo ry, passive and active vibration controllers are developed. A Galerkin approach generates the linearized, closed loop, modal dynamics equati ons for out-of-plane vibration. Simulations and experiments demonstrat e the improved damping provided by the active boundary controller. (C) 1996 Academic Press Limited