Vibration Control of an Experimental Two-Link Manipulator

In this paper we address the problem of actuator placement for articulated flexible structures. Specifically, placement of a single active bay on an articulated truss is formulated and solved for the UCSB/Astro-Aerospace truss. We observe that controllability grammian methods are not reliable in general and that better placements are achieved using closed-loop performance measures. Some preliminary vibration damping experiments are also described.