Active Vibration Control Undergraduate Student Design Competition
Intelligent Sensors and Actuators Symposium at the 2010 Earth and Space Conference
Organized by Smart Materials and Structures Laboratory, University of Houston
Description of the Competition Platform: Shown in Figs. 1, 2, and 3 is a
flexible beam with piezoceramic sensor and piezoceramic actuator. This
setup was made possible by possible by NSF awards (DUE 0442991 and
0717860). The piezoceramic sensor will sense the vibration of the beam, and
the piezoceramic actuator will generate control action to counteract the beam
vibration if the controller is properly designed. A PC with a dSPACE data
acquisition and real time control system, along with Matlab/Simulink, will
be provided (Fig. 4). A TREK amplifier will be available. An unknown
beam will be used as the control object. The frequency response under a
sweep sine input of a similar beam made of aluminum (529.9mm×48.7mm
×0.68mm) is shown in Fig. 5, as a reference. The first four frequencies are
2.01Hz, 10.8Hz, 28.63Hz and 56,76Hz, respectively.
Mode selection switch. “PC Control” will be used.
Modal vibration selection buttons
Fig. 1 A portable smart flexible
beam with piezoceramic sensor
and actuator
Positive position Control
Sliding mode Control
Fig. 3 User Interface of the flexible beam experiment, which can be
autonomous or controlled by an external system
Fig. 2 Vibration at 1st
modal frequencies
Fig. 4 Experimental setup with dSPACE system
Control Design Objective: The control design
objective is to design a controller to suppress
the induced vibration (only the first mode) of
the flexible beam in the presence of mass
uncertainty by using the piezoceramic actuator
and the piezoceramic sensor. Please note the
beam used for the competition will be
different from the one that is used to
generate Fig. 5. Though the vibration control
targets the first mode, other modal vibration of
the beam should not be excited.
Each competition team may consist of 1-2
undergraduate students.
Fig. 5 Frequency response
Competition Procedure: Day 1 (March 15, 2010): each team will be given 30min-1hr for system identification.
Day 2 (March 16, 2010): each team will be given 30min-1hr for control design verification. Day 3 (March 17,
2010): the actual competition – each team’s controller will be given 30min-1hr to run under two cases to
suppress induced vibration: 1) no uncertainty, 2) with mass uncertainty
A comprehensive evaluation will be used to rank each controller’s performance. The evaluation is based on the
control effectiveness. The settling time (5% of the initial value), chattering effect, and overshoot are considered
as main evaluation criteria. For example, a sample controller based on a sliding mode approach is used. Fig. 6
shows the vibration suppression effect of this controller. Based on the above evaluation, the final score is 81 for
this controller (Table 1).
A committee of professors and researchers specialized in vibration control or smart structures will be formed and
oversee this student competition.
Fig. 6 Control effect of a sample controller
Table 1 Calculation of the final score for a sample controller
Control Effect
Settling Time Chattering Effect Overshoot
Evaluation Criteria
(60%)
(20%)
(20%)
Sample controller
71
92
99
Final
Score
81
More information about this competition can be found at http://egr.uh.edu/smsl/conference.html or contact
Gangbing Song, Ph.D.
Director, Smart Materials and Structures Laboratory
Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Houston
Houston, TX 77204-4006
Tel: (713) 743-4525
Fax: (713) 743-4503
Email: gsong@uh.edu