Active Vibration Control based on cost effective microcontroller

In this paper, Active Vibration Control (AVC) problem is effectively treated covering all the aspects of a control problem. The structure under study is a honeycomb panel of carbon fiber. AVC is in general applied by means of costly devices and equipment, that could lead to a limitation for pratical applications. A cost effective and practical solution to AVC problems has been developed and tested using a Micro-controller Unit from Texas Instruments. The control problem is studied by subjecting the plate to out of plane disturbance using an electrodynamic shaker, exciting the identified modes by experimental modal analysis. The sensor and actuator for the control problem is a piezo patch. Multiple analog signal processing circuits were developed to scale and shift the signal at the input and output of the MCU. The control algorithm proposed is based on Positive Position Feedback (PPF) technique. A series of tests were performed using pure sine excitations at frequencies of interest. The result of the experiments revealed a velocity attenuation of 50% to 77% and Power Spectral Density (PSD) attenuation of 5.8 to 12.8 dB, depending on the mode under study. Owing to the size and mass properties of the MFC patches, the control system is very much suitable for automobile and aerospace applications.