Technique for Placement of Structural Actuators/Sensors for Active Control of Sound

The proposed research will investigate the optimal placement of sensors and actuators for active control of sound. The technique will be based on a tested approach for the robust placement of active and passive dampers in lightly-damped, complex structures. Innovative performance metrics will be developed that are specifically tailored to the control of structure-borne sound. These include exploiting simultaneous sensing and actuation for collocated control and the use of shaped sensors for the remote measurement of volume velocity. Efficient algorithms will be developed for the optimal placement of multiple sensors and actuators. Efficiency is the key issue due to the expansive search space that exists in a multiparameter optimization for reducing sound radiation from structures. The Phase I work plan consists of determining placement algorithms and metrics for broadband acoustic and vibration control, deciding on the level of spatial filtering needed for effective sound attenuation, and selecting a control approach which is computationally efficient robust to model errors. A hardware demonstration will be performed in the Phase I option to evaluate the techniques. The final product of the Phase I effort will be an experimentally validated placement algorithm for the active control of sound.