Optimal Design of Wide-Spectrum Active Vibration Control Systems

This research will establish the feasibility of new control system optimization techniques to address complex vibration control problems within the constraints of limited cost, volume, and weight. Several methods are being investigated and developed topredict the phase of response in a reverberant multiple degree of freedom (MDOF) system, with particular application to on-orbit space structures. The successful concept will allow for the predicted amplitude and phase versus frequency distribution to beused in conjunction with conventional control analysis to develop a more accurate statistical prediction of the control performance. Furthermore, statistical confidence bonds on the influence of causality need to be developed; once these methods have beendeveloped, they should be applied to the problem of control system design of a large, space structure such as ASTREX.