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We consider the problem of monitoring and scheduling a network of intelligent sensors and actuators in large flexible structures. A hybrid controller that activates a subset of the devices in the sensor and actuator network is proposed and whose objective is to effectively address the effects of spatiotemporally varying disturbances. It is assumed that the flexible structure is subjected to disturbances and the intelligent control policy attempts to activate the actuators that, over the duration of a time interval, have spatial authority against the spatiotemporally varying disturbances. The hybrid controller switches the relevant actuators on and deactivates the ones that are not used over a given time interval. The basic idea behind the proposed supervisory scheme is to show that using a switched controller, it is possible to simultaneously improve controller performance and reduce the power consumption in the actuator/sensor network. Both analytical and experimental results on a flexible aluminum plate with eight pairs of collocated actuator/sensor PZT pairs are presented.

In this note, we revisit the problem of actuator/sensor placement in large civil infrastructures and flexible space structures within the context of spatial robustness. The positioning of these devices becomes more important in systems employing wireless sensor and actuator networks (WSAN) for improved control performance and for rapid failure detection. The ability of the sensing and actuating devices to possess the property of spatial robustness results in reduced control energy and therefore the spatial distribution of disturbances is integrated into the location optimization measures. In our studies, the structure under consideration is a flexible plate clamped at all sides. First, we consider the case of sensor placement and the optimization scheme attempts to produce those locations that minimize the effects of the spatial distribution of disturbances on the state estimation error; thus the sensor locations produce state estimators with minimized disturbance-to-error transfer function norms. A two-stage optimization procedure is employed whereby one first considers the open loop system and the spatial distribution of disturbances is found that produces the maximal effects on the entire open loop state. Once this "worst" spatial distribution of disturbances is found, the optimization scheme subsequently finds the locations that produce state estimators with minimum transfer function norms. In the second part, we consider the collocated actuator/sensor pairs and the optimization scheme produces those locations that result in compensators with the smallest norms of the disturbance-to-state transfer functions. Going a step further, an intelligent control scheme is presented which, at each time interval, activates a subset of the actuator/sensor pairs in order provide robustness against spatiotemporally moving disturbances and minimize power consumption by keeping some sensor/actuators in sleep mode.

The objective of this investigation is to present a computational scheme for the optimal placement of actuating devices in flexible plates that utilize piezoceramic patches as actuators. In addition to controllability criteria, the candidate locations are required to also exhibit robustness with respect to the spatial distribution of disturbances. These PZT actuators are bonded at optimal locations that are determined by statically minimizing the optimal value of a disturbance-to-output transfer function with respect to the worst distribution of disturbances. Once the optimal actuator locations are determined, that in addition to performance specifications also satisfy a spatial robustness criterion, a suitable LQR-based controller is designed. At a given interval of time, only one PZT is activated and the remaining ones are kept dormant. The rationale of actuator/controller switching is to demonstrate the better vibration alleviation characteristics of switching between actuators over the use of a single actuator that is always in continuous use. The optimality of switching is made with respect to a cost-to-go performance index that corresponds to each actuating device. Extensive computer simulations with repeatable spatiotemporally varying disturbance profiles, reveal that this algorithm offers better performance over the non-switched case.© (2005) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.