Collocated structural control: motivation and methodology

Much of the structural control research to date has focused on either abstract, or space-based applications. As the field matures, there is increasing interest in applying the technology to industrial problems. The primary limitation in achievable performance in experimentation is usually due to robustness. In moving to industrial applications, the robustness issue becomes even more critical, as the same control law must generally function for many units off an assembly line, and in a variety of operating conditions. The overall cost of the system is also a primary driver, and therefore the control architecture should be kept as simple as possible. Faced with these difficulties, collocated control can be extremely useful. Applications of collocated control can roughly be divided into two categories; active damping, and isolation. The motivation and design methodology of these solution techniques is discussed by means of several examples. Collocation is also shown to provide robustness benefits even if one of these design strategies is not followed