Experimental Active Vibration Control of a Highly Flexible Composite Manipulator with Acceleration Feedback

In this study, vibration control of a single-link flexible smart composite manipulator (FSCM) is experimentally studied. The experimental system includes a real-time data acquisition control card, accelerometer, amplifier, servo motor, and driver. The FSCM is an epoxy-glass composite manipulator with the piezoelectric actuator and has the orientation of [0/90] lay-up. Modal analysis is experimentally conducted to find the natural frequencies by applying a chirp signal to the piezoelectric actuator. Natural frequencies are found by taking the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) in MATLAB. Triangular motion profiles are used to drive the FSCM. Motion parameters are found by utilizing the natural frequencies of the system for different deceleration times (tdec). with different deceleration times (tdec). Residual vibrations are suppressed by using PID control with acceleration feedback. The acceleration signals at the tip point are measured by utilizing the accelerometer. The controller gains are determined with the trial and error method. Experimental residual vibration results are presented for the active control. It is observed that the suppression of vibration amplitudes further increases with active control.