A computational scheme for the optimal sensor/actuator placement of flexible structures using spatial H2H2 measures

This paper develops a spatial H2H2 norm-based computational scheme for finding the optimal locations of sensors and actuators in controlled flexible structures. As the optimization index, the spatial H2H2 norm of the closed-loop transfer matrix from the disturbance to the distributed controlled output is used. The design of the optimal spatial H2H2 controller is based on the reduced model of the flexible structure, which contains the dominant modes that have the largest contribution to the system's spatial H2H2 norm. The proposed genetic algorithm (GA) is subsequently used to solve the resulting nonlinear optimization problem. The effectiveness of the proposed scheme is demonstrated by a numerical example on the vibration control of a plate structure. Simulation results also show that the spatial H2H2 norm is a better performance index to be used in the structural vibration control when the vibration reduction is required over a continuous area on the structure.