Design Method of Semi-Active Control Systems Minimizing the Error Between the Controlled Signals of the Semi-Active and its Reference Active Control Systems

We propose a semi-active vibration control method of structural systems based on the output emulation approach. In the output emulation approach, the semi-active control law is obtained so that the controlled output signal of the semi-active control system is similar to that of the reference active control system. The reference active control system is a virtual control system employing the actuator for vibration control and achieves the ideal control performance. Because the constraints of the semi-active control comes from the inherent dissipative characteristics of semi-active control devices a certain amount of the error of the controlled output signals between the semi-active and its reference active control system is unavoidable. To realize the semi-active control system based on the output emulation approach, i.e., the semi-active control system whose controlled output signal is similar to that of the reference active control system, the semi-active control law in the present study is obtained for minimizing an error function related to the controlled output. The error function is defined as a quadratic function on the output signal of the error between the semi-active and its reference active control systems and the Lyapunov matrix. The control characteristics of the reference active control law and free parameters in the Lyapunov matrix are searched with a boot-strap optimization algorithm for the optimal semi-active control system. Some simulation results are shown to claim the effectiveness.