Control Of Flexible Structures

Flexible structures arise in significant important areas of application, such as robotics, large space structures, and antenna control. Difficulties related to sensing and identification hamper control of such systems. These problems require collaboration between mathematicians and engineers. To promote such collaboration, the Fields Institute sponsored a three-day workshop entitled ``Problems in Sensing, Identification, and Control of Flexible Structures'' in June 1992. This volume contains papers presented at the workshop. Topics range from theoretical research on the well-posedness of systems, to experimental implementations of various controllers. A number of controller design techniques are discussed and compared, and there are several papers on modelling the complex dynamics of flexible structures. This book is a useful resource to control theorists, engineers, and mathematicians interested in this important field of research.

A demonstration of state-space procedure for modeling and control of a flexible structure and increased understanding of control problems for such systems. Report Documentation Page.

Methods of structural control and dynamics are introduced in this book. These include reduction of large structural models by balanced truncation, placement of actuators and sensors for dynamic testing and control, structural identification of the minimum-order balanced representation, balanced dissipative controller design, balanced LQG and H( controller designs with the closed-form relationships between controller parameters and system performance, and controller reduction methods that preserve the closed-loop performance. The book explores the unique properties of flexible structures to obtain efficient methods of dynamic analysis and controller design. The presented methods of structural dynamics, identification, sensor/actuator placement, and passive, LQG and H( controller design have been checked both with simulations and industrial implementations.

Methods of structural control and dynamics are introduced in this book. These include reduction of large structural models by balanced truncation, placement of actuators and sensors for dynamic testing and control, structural identification of the minimum-order balanced representation, balanced dissipative controller design, balanced LQG and H( controller designs with the closed-form relationships between controller parameters and system performance, and controller reduction methods that preserve the closed-loop performance. The book explores the unique properties of flexible structures to obtain efficient methods of dynamic analysis and controller design. The presented methods of structural dynamics, identification, sensor/actuator placement, and passive, LQG and H( controller design have been checked both with simulations and industrial implementations.

This book addresses problems in structural dynamics and control encountered in applications such as robotics, aerospace structures, earthquake-damage prevention, and active noise suppression. The rapid developments of new technologies and computational power have made it possible to formulate and solve engineering problems that seemed unapproachable only a few years ago. This presentation combines concepts from control engineering (such as system norms and controllability) and structural engineering (such as modal properties and models), thereby revealing new structural properties as well as giving new insight into well-known laws. This book will assist engineers in designing control systems and dealing with the complexities of structural dynamics.

The purpose of this monograph is threefold. First, mathematical models of the transient behavior of some or all of the state variables describing the motion of multiple-link flexible structures will be developed. The structures which we have in mind consist of finitely many interconnected flexible ele ments such as strings, beams, plates and shells or combinations thereof and are representative of trusses, frames, robot arms, solar panels, antennae, deformable mirrors, etc. , currently in use. For example, a typical subsys tem found in almost all aircraft and space vehicles consists of beam, plate and/or shell elements attached to each other in a rigid or flexible manner. Due to limitations on their weights, the elements themselves must be highly flexible, and due to limitations on their initial configuration (i. e. , before de ployment), those aggregates often have to contain several links so that the substructure may be unfolded or telescoped once it is deployed. The point of view we wish to adopt is that in order to understand completely the dynamic response of a complex elastic structure it is not sufficient to con to take into account the sider only its global motion but also necessary flexibility of individual elements and the interaction and transmission of elastic effects such as bending, torsion and axial deformations at junctions where members are connected to each other. The second object of this book is to provide rigorous mathematical analyses of the resulting models.