Design of a stand-alone active damper for distributed control of vibration

The aim of active vibration control is to enhance the performance of a system (eg. comfort, fatigue life, etc.) by limiting vibrations. One of the most effective technique to reach this goal is to increase the equivalent damping of the system and then the dissipation of the kinetic energy (the so called skyhook damping technique). Application of active vibration control often require a complex setup. When large structures are considered, it is often necessary to have a high number of sensors and actuators, suitably cabled, in addition to all the devices necessary to condition and amplify the signals of measurement and control and to execute in real time the control algorithms synthesized. This work arises from the need to simplify this situation, developing a standalone device that is able of carrying out operations of vibration control in an autonomous way, thus containing in itself an actuator, the sensors needed to evaluate the vibratory state of the structure, and a micro-controller embedding different control algorithm. The design of the smart damper covers many aspects and requires a strong integration of different disciplines. A prototype has been realized and tested on a vibrating structure. The experimental results show good performance in suppress vibration.