Active vibration control of a smart cantilever beam at resonance: A comparison between conventional and Real Time Control

All mechanical systems suffer from undesirable vibrations during their operations. These vibrations are unavoidable as they depend on various factors. However, for efficient operation of the system, they have to be controlled within the specified limits. Light weight, rapid and multi-mode control of the vibrating structure is possible by the use of piezoelectric sensors and actuators coupled with feedback algorithms. In this paper, direct output feedback based active vibration control has been implemented on a smart cantilever beam at its resonant frequency using PZT (Lead Zirconate Titanate) sensors and actuators. The work aims to showcase the performance abilities of the conventional PC based control and a dedicated REAL TIME CONTROL at resonance. The platform used is LABVIEW RT with FPGA hardware and the system performance is compared with the conventional time multiplexed Operating System (Windows 7) where LABVIEW is again used with the appropriate DAQ devices.