Active Vibration Control With

Modified Positive Position

S. Nima Mahmoodi1
Visiting Assistant Professor
e-mail: mahmoodi@vt.edu
Mehdi Ahmadian
Professor
Director
e-mail: ahmadian@vt.edu
Department of Mechanical Engineering,
Center for Vehicle Systems & Safety,
Virginia Tech,
MC-0901,
Blacksburg, VA 24061
Feedback
A novel active vibration control technique based on positive position feedback method is
developed. This method, which is a modified version of positive position feedback, em-
ploys a first-order compensator that provides damping control and a second-order com-
pensator for vibration suppression. In contrast, conventional positive position feedback
uses a single second-order compensator. The technique is useful for strain-based sensors
and can be applied to piezoelectrically controlled systems. After introducing the concept
of modified positive position feedback, this paper investigates the stability of the new
method for locating gain limits. Stability conditions are global and independent of the
dynamical characteristics of the open-loop system. Using root locus plots, proper com-
pensator frequency is identified and damping of the closed-loop system is studied. The
performance of the modified positive position feedback for both steady-state and transient
dynamic control is studied. The experimental and numerical results show that the pro-
posed method is significantly more effective in controlling steady-state response and
slightly advantageous for transient dynamics control, as compared with conventional
positive position feedback. 关DOI: 10.1115/1.3089565兴

Keywords: active control, vibration compensation, positive position feedback, first-order

compensator, second-order compensator

1 Introduction vibrations due to an impulse; however, in the case of using first-

Implementation of the active vibration control to many flexible
structures, using smart materials, has successfully suppressed the
vibrations of the structures. Piezoelectric actuators have recently
been used to control the vibration in many applications from mi-
croscale actuators in atomic force microscopes to active vibration
control of aircraft body 关1–3兴. The use of shape memory alloys is
also growing and the ability of these materials to return some
previously defined shape or size is used to control some structures
关4–6兴. Although a lot of research has been done in area of vibra-
tion control, there is always a need to provide a better active
vibration control method for the flexible structures using smart
materials as control actuator.
There are several classical vibration control methods to sup-
press the vibrations of the structures such as lead, velocity feed-
back, and acceleration feedback when the displacement, velocity,
and acceleration are measurable, respectively 关7兴. The idea of
positive position feedback 共PPF兲 control is based on velocity feed-
back control 关8兴; however, in PPF the control force is applied
through a piezoelectric actuator, which produces strain instead of
direct force. PPF is a very appropriate control method, which has
been recently considered in many applications such as flexible
antenna 关9兴, flexible manipulator 关10兴, spacecraft 关11兴, solar panel
commonly mounted on satellites 关12兴, and other applications. The
main idea of PPF is using a second-order compensator in the
feedback path with a large damping value to suppress the vibra-
tion and a gain value, which is smaller than 1 to keep the system
in the stable zone 关13兴. A first-order compensator can be also used
in PPF to control the vibration 关14兴 and it can rapidly suppress the
1
Corresponding author.
Contributed by the Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control Division of
ASME for publication in the JOURNAL OF DYNAMIC SYSTEMS, MEASUREMENTS, AND
CONTROL. Manuscript received July 2, 2008; final manuscript received December 22,
2008; published online April 27, 2009. Assoc. Editor: Ahmet S. Yigit.
order compensator, the induced periodic vibrations in the system
cannot be controlled well.
Using PPF requires enough understanding about the character-
istics of the system. The two parameters of damping ratio of the
compensator and control gain must be carefully selected. In some
cases, in order to choose proper control gain and damping ratio for
the compensator, system identification is required. A least mean
square based compensator was used for online vibration control of
cantilever beam in real time using PPF control 关15兴. PPF control-
ler was also formulated as an output feedback controller to design
the control system 关16兴 and the optimal control method was used
to show how a control design algorithm for output feedback can
be used to design PPF controllers. Also in another research, the
optimal control was combined with PPF in order to design the
controller 关17兴. PPF has been also combined with delayed feed-
back to design a more robust controller 关18,19兴. The idea was to
use international time delays, which may be large when compared
with the natural periods of the structure. Adaptive control was
used for the multimodal vibration control of frequency varying
structures 关20兴. In these studies, the selection of both the damping
ratio and control gain is critical to how well PPF is able to reduce
structural disturbances 关21兴. Providing the means to make the se-
lection of the damping ratio easier would ease control design task.
The method suggested in this study provides a technique for easier
selection of new technique gains.
For transient input, such as an impulse, PPF requires a high
damping ratio in order to more quickly settle down the transient
dynamics. For periodic disturbance, the damping of the compen-
sator needs to be smaller and gain should be higher to reduce the
vibrations. When both impulsive and periodic disturbances are
presented, the optimal gain and damping ratio must be selected to
provide a compromise between controlling the transient and
steady-state dynamics. The modified positive position feedback
suggested here uses two parallel compensators to eliminate the
compromise inherent to conventional PPF. One compensator is a
second-order compensator with a very low damping and the other
compensator is a first-order compensator, each with its own gain.

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Fig. 1 Block diagram of modified positive position feedback
The modified controller allows choosing proper gains that reduces
settling time and controlling effort, when compared with PPF.
2 Modified Positive Position Feedback
The basic concept of the modified positive position feedback
共MPPF兲 is introduced in the diagram depicted in Fig. 1. The posi-
tive feedback controller consists of a second order and a first-
order controller working in parallel. The controller is applied to
suppress vibrations of a low damped structure.
The system includes three equations, one describing the struc-
ture and other two describing the compensators:
ẍ + ␩ẋ + ␻2nx = ␻2n共␣y + ␤z兲 共1a兲
ÿ + ␩ f ẏ + ␻2f y = ␻2f x 共1b兲
ż + ␻ f z = ␻ f x 共1c兲
x denotes the modal coordinate, y and z are the compensator co-
ordinates, ␣ and ␤ are the positive scalar gains, ␩ = 2␨␻n and ␻n
are the damping and natural frequency of the structure, and ␻ f is
the frequency of the actuator. It is considered that ␩ f → 0; it can-
not be zero since practically a zero damping filter may not be
provided and may cause instability of the system. However, the
damping ratio of the filter will be considered small enough not to
have influence on control gains and since it is very small com-
pared with the other terms in the rest of the paper it will be
considered to be zero. The second-order compensator does not
have any damping term; however, the first-order compensator re-
inforces the damping of the controlled system. The controller fol-
lows the terminology of positive feedback control, which means
that the position coordinates of Eqs. 共1b兲 and 共1c兲 are positively
Fig. 2 Nyquist diagram: „a… stable system, ␣ + ␤ < 1, ␣ < 1, and ␤ < 1; „b… unstable system, ␣ + ␤ > 1, ␣ < 1, and ␤ < 1
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fed back to the structure. Therefore, both ␣ and ␤ gains are posi-
tive.
The closed-loop characteristic equation for the structure-
compensator presented in Eqs. 共1a兲–共1c兲 is
共s2 + ␩s + ␻2n兲共s2 + ␻2f 兲共s + ␻ f 兲 − ␻2n关␣␻2f 共s + ␻ f 兲 + ␤␻ f 共s2 + ␻2f 兲兴
=0 共2兲
where s is the Laplace operator.
2.1 Stability. The stability of the closed-loop system is inves-
tigated to find ␣ and ␤ gains limits. A Nyquist stability analysis of
the system of Eqs. 共1a兲–共1c兲 results in the necessary and sufficient
condition of 共␣ + ␤兲 ⬍ 1 for the stability. Figure 2共a兲 depicts the
Nyquist diagram for the system with 共␣ + ␤兲 ⬍ 1 共as an example in
this figure ␣ = ␤ = 0.3 with ␻ f = 2兲 and Fig. 2共b兲 shows the Nyquist
diagram for the system with 共␣ + ␤兲 ⬎ 1 共in this figure ␣ = ␤ = 0.8兲.
Both ␣ and ␤ are bounded as 0 ⬍ ␣ ⬍ 1 and 0 ⬍ ␤ ⬍ 1.
THEOREM 1. The combined structure and compensators of Eqs.
(1a)–(1c) with characteristic equation of Eq. (2) is stable only if
共␣ + ␤兲 ⬍ 1.
Proof. The characteristic equation 共2兲 is investigated using
Routh–Hurwitz criterion. A necessary and sufficient condition for
stability is that all elements in the first column of Routh–Hurwitz
array be positive 关22兴. These elements can be shown to be
E1 = ␩ + ␻ f 共3a兲
E2 = 关␩2␻ f + ␤␻2n␻ f + ␩共␻2n + ␻2f 兲兴/E1 共3b兲
E3 = ␻2n␻ f 关␩␻ f 共1 + ␣ − ␤兲 + 共1 − ␤兲␻2n共␩ + ␤␻ f 兲/E1兴/E2 共3c兲
E4 = ␣␻2n␻3f 关E p + ␩2␻ f 共共2 − ␣兲␻2n + 2␻ f 共␩ + ␻ f 兲兲兴/E1E2E3
共3d兲
E5 = ␻2n␻3f 关1 − 共␣ + ␤兲兴 共3e兲
where E p = ␤2␻n␻ f + ␤␩␻2n共␻2n + ␻ f 共␩ + 3␻ f 兲兲
4
is positive.
The values of E1 and E2 are unconditionally positive. E5 is
positive if 共␣ + ␤兲 ⬍ 1. As such both E3 and E4 are also positive,
knowing that 0 ⬍ ␣ ⬍ 1 and 0 ⬍ ␤ ⬍ 1. Therefore, the closed-loop
system stability depends on the control gains, not the damping
ratio, just as in the case with conventional PPF.
2.2 Parameter Characterization. In order to achieve a more
complete picture of the characteristics of the system in Eq. 共1兲, a
root locus analysis is performed to track the movements of the
closed-loop poles as a function of gain. Similar to PPF, three
Transactions of the ASME
 Fig. 3 Root locus plot of MPPF for ␻f < ␻n
possible cases are investigated: 共1兲 when the natural frequency of
the compensators, ␻ f , is less than the natural frequency of the
system, ␻n; 共2兲 when they are equal; and 共3兲 when natural fre-
quency of the compensator is greater than system’s. It should be
noted that for the root locus plots in Figs. 3–5, it is considered that
␣ ⯝ ␤. In addition, the damping of the flexible system is consid-
ered to be small.
Figure 3 depicts the root locus of the closed-loop system when
␻ f ⬍ ␻n. The highest branch 共the complex pole of the system兲
shows that this pole is stable; however, the pole on the real axis
becomes unstable as the control gain increases. By increasing the
natural frequency of the compensator, the real pole starts to go
farther to the left side, as shown in Figs. 4 and 5.
When natural frequencies of the system and compensators are
equal, ␻ f = ␻n, the branch of the system complex pole descends
␻2n共s2 + ␻2f 兲共s + ␻ f 兲
TF =
共s + ␩s +
2
␻2n兲共s2 + ␻ f 兲共s + ␻ f 兲 − ␻2n关␣␻2f 共s
2
which is derived using the block diagram in Fig. 1. Now, the
response of the system can be analyzed and using the overshoot of
Fig. 4 Root locus plot of MPPF for ␻f = ␻n
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Fig. 5 Root locus plot of MPPF for ␻f > ␻n
toward the origin, as shown in Fig. 4. In this case, the real pole is
farther to left. Increasing the natural frequency of the compensator
causes one of the branches to converge to the real axis, according
to Fig. 5. The corresponding pole quickly moves to the right-half
plane and becomes unstable. Therefore, the best situation is when
␻ f = ␻ n.
As shown in Eqs. 共1b兲 and 共1c兲, increasing ␣ and ␤ increases
the closed-loop system stiffness and damping, respectively. Small
gains 共␣ or ␤ ⬍ 0.1兲 appear to not provide adequate damping,
whereas larger gains provide the necessary amount of damping. It
is important to remember that the relationship holds 共␣ + ␤兲 ⬍ 1. In
order to find proper gains with higher damping for a closed-loop
system, damping is calculated for different range of gains, as de-
picted in Fig. 6.
The closed-loop damping is calculated using the transfer func-
tion of
共4兲
+ ␻ f 兲 + ␤␻ f 共s2 + ␻2f 兲兴
the response to a step input, the closed-loop damping ratio, ␨c, is
calculated using the following estimation 关22兴:
Fig. 6 Damping of the closed-loop system for different gains:
␻f = ␻n = 1 and ␩ = 0.02
JULY 2009, Vol. 131 / 041002-3
 ␨˙ + ⍀ f ␨ = ⍀1/2
f 〉 Cx
1/2
共8c兲
The above equation can be rewritten in a matrix form as

冤 冥 冤 冥冤 冥
ẍ D 0 0 ẋ
¨ + 0 Df 0
␺ ␺˙
0 0 0 I ␨˙

冤 冥冤 冥
⍀2 − CT〈1/2⍀ f − CT〉1/2⍀1/2
f x
+ − ⍀f〈 C 1/2
⍀2f 0 ␺ =0
− ⍀1/2
f 〉 C
1/2
0 ⍀f ␨
共9兲
Defining

冤 冥
D 0 0
Fig. 7 Damping of the closed-loop system for equal gains:
L = 0 Df 0 and
␻f = ␻n = 1 and ␩ = 0.02
0 0 I

冤 冥
␨c = 0.6共1 − M p兲 for 0 ⱕ ␨c ⱕ 0.6 共5兲 ⍀2 − CT〈1/2⍀ f − CT〉1/2⍀1/2
f

where M P is overshoot. P= − ⍀f〈 C 1/2

⍀2f 0 共10兲
Figure 6 shows that increasing ␤ alone does not necessarily − ⍀1/2
f 〉 C
1/2
0 ⍀f
increase the damping. For each ␤, there is an optimum ␣ that
The system of Eq. 共9兲 is asymptotically stable if and only if both
result in the highest damping. The results in Fig. 6 indicate the
L and P are positive definite, according to Goh and Caughey 关8兴.
best domain for the gains are 0.15ⱕ ␣ ⱕ 0.3 and 0.2ⱕ ␤ ⱕ 0.5.
Since D, D f , and I are positive definite, then L is positive definite.
Since both ␣ and ␤ are in a close range, one may consider select-
For evaluation of P, it should be shown that for any arbitrary and
ing equal ␣ and ␤ and choose only one gain to control the system,
as shown in Fig. 7. Although not necessarily optimal, this ap- nonzero vector k = 关kT1 kT2 kT3 兴T the following condition is valid:
proach is easier than but not as efficient as main approach. kTPk ⬎ 0 共11兲
It is observed that there is an optimum gain of 0.25 for values
of ␣ = ␤ smaller than 0.35; however, for gain of higher than 0.35 Expanding the condition of Eq. 共11兲 and adding and subtracting
the damping of the closed-loop starts to rapidly increase. k1CT〈Ck1 and k1CT〉Ck1 yields to
共− 〈1/2Ck1 + ⍀ f k2兲T共− 〈1/2Ck1 + ⍀ f k2兲 + 共− 〉1/2Ck1 + ⍀1/2
f k 3兲 共
T

3 Multidegree-of-Freedom Stability Criterion

− 〉1/2Ck1 + ⍀1/2
f k3兲 + k1 关⍀ − C 共〈 + 〉兲C兴k1 ⬎ 0
T 2 T
共12兲
Considering the systems with Nm mode and N f modes to be
controlled, the general collocated local control implementation The first two terms are positive, since the entire expression must
can be written as be positive, then the third term must also be positive; therefore,

ẍ + Dẋ + ⍀2x = CT共〈y + 〉z兲 共6a兲 ⍀2 − CT共A + B兲C ⬎ 0 共13兲

When the condition of Eq. 共13兲 exists then matrix P is positive
ÿ + D f ẏ + ⍀2f y = ⍀2f Cx 共6b兲 definite and since L is positive definite then Eq. 共9兲, which is the
transformed version of Eq. 共6兲, is asymptotically stable; thus Eq.
ż + ⍀ f z = ⍀ f Cx 共6c兲 共6兲 is asymptotically stable and Theorem 2 is proven. Likewise, if
where x denotes the Nm ⫻ 1 model vector, y and z are the N f ⫻ 1 Eq. 共6兲 and accordingly Eq. 共9兲 are asymptotically stable, L and P
compensator vectors, D is an Nm ⫻ Nm diagonal matrix of modal matrices are positive definite; therefore, the condition in Eq. 共13兲
damping, ⍀ is an Nm ⫻ Nm diagonal matrix of modal frequency, must be valid. In addition, another comprehensive stability analy-
D f is an N f ⫻ N f diagonal matrix of compensator damping, ⍀ f is sis approach has been introduced in Ref. 关23兴 that can be used to
an N f ⫻ N f diagonal matrix of compensator frequency, A and B prove the stability condition of Theorem 2. In some cases, to
are the N f ⫻ N f diagonal gain matrices, and C is an N f ⫻ Nm par- model the zeros of the underlying system properly, a feedthrough
term is also added to the model 关24兴. This can be also studied for
ticipation matrix 关13兴 that is dependent on the structure of the Nm
the MPPF control method.
degree of freedom or continuous modal system.
THEOREM 2. The combined structure and compensators of Eq.
(6) are asymptotically stable if
⍀2 − CT共A + B兲C ⬎ 0 4 Results and Comparison
Proof. Equation 共6兲 can be transformed into a symmetric form, 4.1 Experimental Results. The proposed control method
using 共MPPF兲 is both experimentally and numerically investigated and
compared with positive position feedback control. The response
y = 〈−1/2⍀ f ␺ 共7a兲 and required control power for MPPF is compared with PPF for
various types of input including transient and periodic distur-
f ␨
z = 〉−1/2⍀1/2 共7b兲 bances. The experimental verification is performed using a piezo-
Substituting Eq. 共7兲 into Eq. 共6兲 and simplifying the compensator electrically actuated and controlled cantilever beam. The cantile-
equations yield ver beam shown in Fig. 8共a兲 is made of aluminum with modulus
of elasticity of E = 70 GPa. The beam dimensions are 500⫻ 25
ẍ + Dẋ + ⍀2x = CT共〈1/2⍀ f ␺ + 〉1/2⍀1/2
f ␨兲 共8a兲
⫻ 1.6 mm3. Two piezoelectric patches are mounted on the canti-
lever, as shown in Fig. 8共a兲. The one in the middle that will be
¨ +D ␺
␺ ˙
f + ⍀ f ␺ = ⍀ f 〈 Cx 共8b兲
2 1/2
called PZ1 hereafter is used for control of the vibrations. The

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Fig. 8 Piezoelectrically controlled cantilever beam: „a… test
setup; „b… position of actuators and sensors
other piezoelectric patch on the free end of the cantilever 共PZ2兲 is
used for excitation. There are two accelerometers collocated with
the piezoelectric actuators, as shown in Fig. 8共b兲, to record the
vibrations.
In the following, the response of the MPPF to transient and
periodic inputs is obtained and compared with the PPF controller.
For comparing the MPPF and PPF, the system and compensator of
PPF controller are introduced as 关8兴
ẍ + 2␨␻nẋ + ␻2n共x − gy兲 = 0 共14a兲
ÿ + 2␨a␻ f ẏ + ␻2f 共y + x兲 = 0 共14b兲
Figure 9 shows the free vibrations of the both accelerometers
on the cantilever when the free end is displaced for 25 mm and
then released. Both piezoelectric patches are inactive at this point
Fig. 9 Free vibration of cantilever with 25 mm initial displacement at the tip
Fig. 10 MPPF closed-loop free vibration of cantilever with 25 mm initial displacement at the tip
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and the cantilever is only responding to the initial deformation.
The highest peak at center and tip are 0.126 m / s2 and
0.133 m / s2, respectively.
The MPPF closed-loop free decay is shown in Fig. 10. For this
experiment the PZ1 is set to work with MPPF controller. It should
be noted that PZ2 is inactive in this experiment and will be used
later to generate periodic excitations. For the MPPF controller
since the disturbance is transient, the first-order compensator by
itself can efficiently dissipate the vibrations. Therefore, ␣ is cho-
sen to be small 共␣ = 0.03兲, but ␤ is chosen to be relatively large,
i.e., ␤ = 0.8. Using the MPPF controller, the peak at the center
decreases to 0.084 m / s2, also the peak at the tip decreases some
to 0.118 m / s2. There is higher vibration suppression in middle of
the beam since PZ1 is controlling the middle of the beam. MPPF
is a collocated control method 共like conventional PPF兲 and thus
the major vibration suppression happens at the sensor collocated
with PZ1. Comparing the settling time of the open-loop and
closed-loop systems 共MPPF兲, there is a decrease in settling time at
both the center and tip for MPPF closed-loop system. The settling
time for the center decreased from 1.4 s for open loop to 1.2 s for
MPPF controlled. Similar results were achieved at the tip where
settling time reduces by 0.3 s, from 1.7 s to 1.4 s.
The free decay of the cantilever controlled by PPF method is
shown in Fig. 11. For PPF controlled beam, the peak at the center
is 0.086 m / s2, and 0.119 m / s2 at the tip. The results show that
MPPF provides similar 共maybe slightly better兲 vibration suppres-
sion compared to PPF. Similarly, the settling times for PPF and
MPPF are close. Therefore, it can be concluded that for transient
vibrations, MPPF provides nearly the same amount of reduction
as PPF.
The response of the open-loop and closed-loop systems is com-
pared when periodic disturbance is applied to the cantilever, as
JULY 2009, Vol. 131 / 041002-5
 Fig. 11 PPF closed-loop free vibration of cantilever with 25 mm initial displacement at the tip

depicted in Figs. 12 and 13. The periodic disturbance is applied The case with higher amplitude vibrations is considered in order
through PZ2 to the cantilever. The experiments show that the first to examine the MPPF controller with the highest available distur-
natural frequency of the beam is at 4 Hz and the second one bance. Therefore, the PZ2 is excited at 26 Hz with an amplitude of
happens at 26 Hz. It is also observed that the amplitude of vibra- 1.5 V. Figure 12 shows the responses of the closed-loop system
tions at the second natural frequency is higher than the first mode. with the PPF controller. The PPF gain is g = 0.6 and the damping
is ␨a = 0.35. The beam is excited while the PPF controller was
inactive, then at t = 5 s the controller is activated. Sensor 1 is the
accelerometer collocated with PZ1. A series of experiments was
performed to find the best gain and damping for the PPF compen-
sator. Although the vibration amplitude is reduced, there still re-
mains some residual vibrations. The steady-state response of PPF
shows only 9% decrease in vibration amplitude.
As shown in Fig. 13, MPPF not only reduces the disturbance
faster than PPF but it also decreases the steady-state response. For
the MPPF compensators, the gains are ␣ = 0.12 and ␤ = 0.5, which
results in reducing the response amplitude by 77%. The results for
MPPF, in comparison with PPF, indicate that it yields much better
control of both the transient and steady-state dynamics. As shown
in Fig. 13, the periodic response has much smaller residual vibra-
tions than what was experienced for PPF in Fig. 12.
The MPPF gains are selected in the experiment by starting to
increase the damping of the system. Therefore, first the gain ␣ is
zero and ␤ is increased from zero to the value beyond which it
does not change the response; then, ␣ is increased to suppress
more vibrations. It should be noted that excessively large gain can
make the controller unstable.
Fig. 12 PPF Closed-loop response to the periodic distur- It is important to investigate the control effort. Referring to Fig.
bances with g = 0.6 and ␨a = 0.35 1, the controller output u is shown in Fig. 14. Figure 14共a兲 is the
control effort of MPPF controller that is applied to suppress the
periodic disturbance and its response was shown in Fig. 13. The
control effort of the PPF controller to the same disturbance, as
demonstrated in Fig. 12, is shown here in Fig. 14共b兲. The differ-
ence in control power is observable in Figs. 14共a兲 and 14共b兲 in
overall control time, yet MPPF results in quicker and more effi-
cient dissipation of the vibratory energy, as observed in Fig. 13.
With 3.9 V peak to peak voltage applied to PPF, the vibrations
decrease by approximately 9%; however, the peak to peak voltage
of 4.9 V applied to MPPF controller provides 77% vibration sup-
pression. It should be noted that the control performance using
PPF cannot be improved by increasing the input voltage to that of
MPPF.
4.2 Numerical Results. For more investigation of the MPPF
controller, the response of the controller is numerically studied in
frequency domain and compared with the open-loop system. For
numerical analysis, the dynamic characteristics of the model are
selected in a way to be close to the experiment. The characteristics
of the structure and the controllers are similar to the ones in pre-
Fig. 13 MPPF closed-loop response to the periodic vious time domain investigations. The Bode plot of the open-loop
disturbances system is shown in Fig. 15 and with solid line and response of the

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 Fig. 14 Control power of closed-loop responses to periodic disturbances: „a… MPPF controller of Fig.
13; „b… PPF controller of Fig. 12
closed-loop system with MPPF controller in dashed line. The
resonance frequency happens at 163 rad/s that is equivalent to 26
Hz. The horizontal axis shows the frequency in logarithmic scale
and vertical axis is the magnitude in decibels. By investigating the
influence of filter frequency, ␻ f , on the response of PPF and
MPPF controlled systems, it is realized that PPF is less sensitive
to the filter frequency. The MPPF is more sensitive to the filter
frequency; when ␻ f approaches the disturbance frequency, the
controlled response becomes nearly zero.
Comparing the response of the MPPF controlled system with
the open-loop frequency response, suppression of vibration at
resonance is completely observable. The notch in the resonance
area due to the MPPF controller is stronger in comparison with
the PPF control. As seen in Fig. 15, MPPF operates efficiently
when the disturbance frequency is near the compensator fre-
quency. There is a spillover for lower frequencies that is expected
and is similar to the PPF method 共see Fig. 16兲. This happens at
frequencies that are away from the resonance frequency, which is
most commonly of interest in vibration 共and noise兲 reduction. It
does not pose any limitation to the effectiveness of MPPF. Near
the resonance frequency, MPPF causes significant reduction in
vibration showing better performance than PPF 共see Fig. 16兲. The
phase of the open-loop is zero and goes to ⫺180 at the resonance
frequency, as expected. However, for MPPF the phase starts to
slightly go to ⫺180 until it reaches resonance frequency and this
conduces to spillover. Then at resonance frequency, the phase
goes back sharply to zero and then quickly returns to ⫺180
Fig. 15 Bode plot of the open-loop „solid line… and closed-loop
systems „MPPF, dashed line…
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afterwards.
The Bode plot of the PPF closed-loop system is shown in Fig.
16 with dashed line and is compared with closed-loop response in
solid line. As it is seen, the PPF spillover in Fig. 16 is similar to
MPPF 共in Fig. 15兲, but the notch at resonance frequency is much
smaller.
For the case of controlling more than one mode, the MPPF can
be used similarly to PPF since it has all the properties of PPF.
However, since MPPF has spillover similar to PPF, this phenom-
enon must be considered in control approach. In the case of con-
trolling a couple of modes, there should be parallel MPPF com-
pensator for each mode. When selecting the gains, due to
spillover, one should start with the highest mode and control that
mode first and then control the lower mode. Otherwise, the spill-
over of the higher mode will affect the lower modes and the gains
must be selected again.
5 Conclusions
A new active vibration control technique called MPPF was in-
troduced as an alternative to positive position feedback that has
been used in many past studies for vibration and noise reduction.
A stability analysis for the method was performed with both Ny-
quist and Routh–Hurwitz criterion and a global stability condition
was established based on the control gains, independent of the
dynamical characteristics of the system. Using root locus dia-
grams, it was shown that in order to control the vibrations of the
Fig. 16 Bode plot of the open-loop „solid line… and PPF closed-
loop „dashed line… with g = 0.6 and ␨a = 0.35
JULY 2009, Vol. 131 / 041002-7
 system near its natural frequency, the compensator frequency must
be selected to be sufficiently close to the natural frequency of the
open-loop system. Since the controller consists of two parallel
first- and second-order compensators with similar frequencies and
different gains, the damping and stiffness of the closed-loop sys-
tem could be increased by the gains of the first and second-order
compensators, respectively. This configuration provides the ad-
vantage of completely decreasing vibration for various types of
inputs, including the ability of complete decay of disturbance even
for periodic disturbances. Both the time and frequency domain
responses of the MPPF controller were investigated and compared
with the response of the PPF controlled and open-loop systems.
The results indicated that MPPF is more effective in reducing
periodic 共steady-state兲 disturbances and is as effective as PPF in
reducing transient vibrations. An investigation on implementation
of the multivariable MPPF on active vibration control of struc-
tures will be considered in future studies.
Acknowledgment
The financial support provided by NASA Langley Research
Center is greatly acknowledged.
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