Vibration Control for Membrane Structures Using Multiple Dielectric Elastomer Actuators

Abstract

Membrane structures are made of thin materials which have tension given by other structures. Their features include flexibility and lightness. However, when vibration is caused on membrane structures, it is hard to attenuate it. The purpose of this study is the vibration suppression of membrane structures by active control method with Dielectric Elastomer Actuator (DEA). In addition, we apply multiple DEAs to attenuate vibration effectively in a wide frequency band. DEA is also flexible and light, so it is suitable for membrane structures as actuator for active vibration control. To design the controller, the state space model is obtained by system identification based on experimental modal analysis approach. The controller is obtained by H_∞ control theory. The effectiveness of proposed active vibration control using multiple DEAs is validated by experiment.