Vibration suppression of distributed parameter flexible structures by Integral Consensus Control

Integral Consensus Control (ICC) is proposed and implemented in this paper for the first time, as a novel approach for vibration control in distributed parameter flexible structures. The ICC consists of multiple parallel first-order lossy integrators, with the goal of targeting all major participating resonant modes in the oscillation of the structure. The vibration control design is taken to a different level, by integrating the concept of consensus control design into the new dynamics. Each control patch on the flexible structure is considered as a node of a network, and a communication topology with consensus control terms are augmented in the controller design dynamics. The result is an effective vibration controller, which is also robust to failures and inconsistencies in the control system. A cantilever is used as a sample flexible structure to investigate the control method. Multi-agent representation of the system, state estimator dynamics and the ICC model are designed for the structure. Extensive numerical simulations have been conducted to show the suppression performance of the ICC under different input disturbances. A comparative study is presented to show the advantage of the decentralized design over the conventional centralized approach. The new consensus control design provides new possibilities to vibration control problems, where an effective, robust and synchronized suppression is needed.