Two-sensor control in active vibration isolation using hard mounts

Author-Highlights
• The transmissibility of a high-stiffness vibration isolator is actively reduced.
• Two-sensor control is added to damp internal modes in active hard mounts.
• No detailed prior knowledge is needed to damp internal modes effectively.
• Collocated control guarantees a stable two-sensor control system.
• Experiments confirm the effectiveness of two-sensor control.

To isolate precision machines from floor vibrations, active vibration isolators are often applied. In this paper, a two-sensor control strategy, based on acceleration feedback and force feedback, is proposed for an active vibration isolator using a single-axis active hard mount. The hard mount provides a stiff support while an active control system is used to get the desired isolation performance. In our previous work, we showed that a sensor fusion control strategy for active hard mounts can be used to realize three performance objectives simultaneously: providing isolation from floor vibrations, achieving a low sensitivity for direct disturbance forces, and adding damping to internal modes of the supported precision machine. In the present work, an enhanced control strategy is presented, referred to as two-sensor control. We will show that two-sensor control outperforms sensor fusion, because it has more possibilities for loop-shaping and has better stability properties. The two-sensor control strategy is successfully validated on an experimental setup.