A method to overcome wireless communication limits in decentralized active control applications

In this work the use of many stand-alone devices is considered for active vibration control. A stand-alone device represents a control unit which is able to independently perform the vibration control task, since it is embedded with sensors, an inertial actuator and a microcontroller, in which the control algorithm is implemented. The developed active controller is also embedded with a wireless module, in order to share information with other devices within the network. The proposed solution aims to improve the performance a decentralized control architecture and it is based on the optimal control theory. The Linear Quadratic Regulator works with the fullstate of the system, which is provided through a state estimation. A state recovery algorithm is then adopted to improve the quality of the estimation without placing a hefty burden on the wireless channel. Numerical analysis is made in order to study the advantages of this method. Finally, the proposed solution is validated with experimental results from a clamped-clamped beam.