Abstract
Active vibration dampers and isolators are capable of reducing vibration, and the results are remarkable and can be achieved adaptively. However, they require a large amount of energy to control the vibration. Since structural vibration has motional energy, a question arises as to how we can utilize this energy rather than just simply suppressing it. In this paper an energy regenerative type suspension is presented which utilized an electrodynamic actuator to regenerate electric power during the high-speed motion of the actuator. At low-speed motion, an active control algorithm is applied to the same actuator to provide good damping performance. In order to reduce energy loss in the control amplifier, active relay control is applied instead of linear control. The system is first simulated on a computer and followed by a simple experiment similar to a suspension system. The results are very encouraging and show that the system performed better than a passive suspension system and can regenerate vibration energy.
