Adaptive Filtering and Disturbance Feedforward Approach for Flexible Beam Train Control

"In this effort, a novel Adaptive Filtering and Disturbance Feed-forward (AFDF) technique is investigated in the context of direct practical application to the ABL beam control system. High performance ATP systems such as those required for ABL oftenoperate in intense aero-acoustic and structural vibration environments. The degradation in performance arising from these disturbances is accentuated as the mass/inertia of the beam train and its support structure are reduced. Further degradation inperformance results from the structural-dynamic interactions excited by the high bandwidth, high acceleration operational characteristics, typical of ATP systems. The proposed technique integrates previous proven approaches to AFDF with recent advances inflexible structure sensing and control. The result is a practical AFDF implementation suitable for flexible beam train applications such as the ABL. A unique aspect of the proposed effort is the introduction of closed loop AFDF to improve overalldisturbance rejection and simultaneously reduce both structural mode and aero-acoustic environment effects on system performance. CSA currently supports Lockheed-Martin on the development of the integrated beam control system for ABL. The AFDF approach hasa direct transition opportunity to the ABL program due to its potential to reduce vibration-induced jitter in the ABL beam control system. Specifically, AFDF can improve performance with respect to t