A ayaamic antivivzation system JR. Sandezeven Labocatories RCA bra. + Radencrstrasse 569, CH-8049 Zurich, Switzerlend Abstract In many sensitive instruments and nroduction machines, the achievable resolution is limited by the ever-present building vibrations. A new dynamic isolation systen is described that effectively cemves these vibrations and has clear advantages over the traditional soft passive isolation system. Introduction In industry and research the quest for tighter production tolerances and higher resolution places stringent requizements on the environment. Vabeation caateol se becoming more and wore important, and better solutions are nodded for the isolation of equipment from the over-present building vibrations, Tt is convenient to divide the spectrum of building vibrations into tne twe regions above and below about 200 He. In the nigh frequency reqion internal vibeation modes Of & piece St equipment may pe resonantly oxcited either by dazect transmission through the Support structure cr via pressure waves In the surrounding air. In general. these resonances do not pose a severe problem. They can normally be avoided by simple high frequency isclation tochniguoe (rubber sade under tho support strugtuze, for example) and iE necessary an acoustically danped enclosure. The low frequency vibrations are, however, micn more serious. They produce a non-resonant distortion proportional to. the acceleration involved. The most disturbing effects occur typically in the freqvency range Of 10-30 Hz where the majopity of buildings have their lergest vibration emplitudes (accelerations of 19° to 10 g in this Erequency range are normal|. Tk 4s these low frequency vibrations that will be addressed in this paper, Although passive isolation systeus have peen developed for this Frequency range, they have many Shortcomings. Previous sttampte~ to build dynamic isolation systems have notsuccesded in meking the jum from drawingboard to practice. A new dynamic asolation system has been Consteucted® which offers significant ‘improvesents over the available passive system. Pa jive Isolation ‘The simplest method of vibration isolation consists of mounting the device to be isolsted on a resilient support. Consider such @ mount consisting of a mass M supported on a spring of force constant das illustrated in Fig. 1(a), Of interest is the vertical Figure {a} Sinple isolation and (b) passive isolation with damping. ovement y) of the mast M in xeeponse to a govenent yy of tho supporting surface. it yy q'a"haraohis aiepiacomant with angrier feqeensy end auplitaie es, then the sseponae 32 nae, where it is straightforwara to show thee Mut a SPIE Yol 732 Vibration Control in Optics ad Motrology (1987) / 157At nigh Erequencien, the socond teem in the denominator is large and ay therefore is Snafie seo 'NlgncEeeguencyLeoletion In Goods “Reuever, “ate “eeequened "given Oy ia’ Geactical eevee: In the damped system of Fig. (b) there is a viscous force F acting with amplitude 7 i Pa tn To > eh and the sesponte of the damped system is 4 +e fp ate The amplitude a; is now complex (ohase shifted), but the amplitude at resonance as reduced a a In practice the choice of damping F is a compromae between low resonant amplitude (Eq. 3) and sufficient high-frequency isolation. Eq.(2) shows that for the high values ot Paceded for low cesanant amplitude, the amplitude a,/a, tends to unity, i-e.. thee is no attenuation of the vibration amplitude. A prad:idal compromise is obtained with PeelGo. while more complex spring systems can offer better high-frequency isolation, the problem of the busldup of amplitude at resonance remains. bynamic_leolacio: ‘The dynamic antivibratios system to be descrabed here comprises units consisting of the combination o€ an accelerometer with an electronechanical transducer. Such @ unit 13 vilugtrated in Fig. 2, The accelesomater consists of a mate m resting on 4 piezoelectric Dise 2, the whole being supported by a bracket B on the device cf mass K to be ssolated. The electromechgnical transducer L§ (e.g-, a modified loudspeaker) allows a variablo farce ta be applied to the underside of the bracket. The force and tho measured compuncnt of acceleration are collinear. In parsilel with the electromechanical transducer is a soring bE toree constant A which Supports the weight cf the body to be isolated. Figuee 2. fhe principle of aynamic vibration isolation. Since tho mass m is supported only by the piezoelectric gise % the voltage V developed geross P18 proportional to the absolute acceleration {a*y, /at7) af the moss m. This voltage is integrated to produce a current I~ f Vat, which! produces a force kat an the electromechanical transducer, where k, 18 a constant. The equation describing the mation of the unit i therstore (ansuming MOF m)s a oO Git = Min nl + tal 158 / SPIE Val 732 Vibrauon Cantotn Optics and Metrotegy (1987)dt dy, hte ym ea km where ky is a constant determined by the gain of the integrator. Therefore ay; on MGR NOL ae hm from which it is straightforward to show that the amplitude a, of the response to a driving amplitude y, = a, exp(iwt) is a A a — Ma?) + ikymw aw ‘The amplitude a) therefore decreases with increasing values of k) (gain). By making k, large enough the resonant term in the denominatar becomes negligible, except at very iow ang very high Eeequencies. Tho ratio a,/a,, oc transmissibility, is plotted in curve [a] of Figure 3 and shows two frequency itte@ials. As uw tenda to zero the transmissibility tends to uaity, Ap intermediate regime follows in which the active feedback is dominant and the transmissibility tends to ae @ ame At the highest frequencies(not chown) a a a Mut corresponding to the passive isolation afforded by the spring mount. 19 - TRANSMISSIBILITY a oF wintuat. INERTIAL x Lic oy lane vhrenttnonr woe a 1010S FREQUENCY (Hz) Figure 3. Transmiasivility of aynamic isolation Figure 4. Illusteation of danping system Curva (a), conpared with passive isolation, with respect toa virtual inertial curve (b) for 8 simple spring and curve (e! fora plane. compound spring. SPIE Vol 732 Vibration Contra in Optics and Metrotogy (1987) / 159Tor comparison the transmissibility of the simple dampod spring (equation 2) is plotted in curve (b) and of a good commercially available compound spring with @o/2q about 1.5 Hz (air columns) in curve [c]. The comparison shows the complete lack S# resonant behaviour of the dynamic systen. Furthermore the isolation of the dynamic system is better at all frequencies thea the simple damped spring and is inforlor ro the conpound spring only at high frequencies where both systens isolate so well that the difference is uniikaly €2 Be of importance. It is of interest to understand the physical reason underlying the lack of resonant behaviour in the dynamic isoletion system. The damping term in equation (@} appears only ta the deseninator and may therefore be made arbitrarily large, unlike for the pessivle ease where the demiag term appears both in the numerator and in the denominator. 3 following the derivation of the equations, it will D2 sean that this distinction acscos pecayye for the passive case damping is proportional to tne relative veloczty between mass and floor, while fur the dynamic. case the demping is prooortional to the absolute Velocity. | An absolute velocity may be thought of as a velocity relative to a Virtual inevtial plane. Thus, as llustrared in Fig. 4, high damping in the dynamic system is equivalont to strong coupling to an inertial reférence frame and, thorefore tne stronger the coupling tse better the isolation. ‘The Dynamics of the Supported Mass Consider the attect of @ force F + Foe! applied disectly to the sueported mess 1. tr Ss" Gary so" thow thar forthe poasive CBee, a Bvaplacement 0, se prouuces whore E, Mio - 2+ iakol a cy) At Fraguencies wore.this tends to ims? oy 8 Fyme in other words the supported mass behaves Like an uncpnstrained or free mass M. At very low Erequencies a, tends to the constant value Fo/Mw, (= Fy/d) reflectsrg the fact that the mass is combliantiy coupled to the ground. since’ a is low, a) as lerge, corresponding to high compliance. The response of a vassively jlounted mass tb an applied force varies therefore from that of @ free mass at high frequencies to that ot a mass-less highly compliant spring at very low frequencies. Around the resonant frequency w, the response is greater than for a free mass Mand ohase shifted. A simple example of 3°vody showing similar dynamic behavaour to that described above is a body with deosity just less than unity floating in water. The term "floating" is commonly used to describe the behaviour of a passively supported body The dynamic response of the actively isolated system has the same form as equation 5, namely ete) iz z (6) fatto Mot — 02 + io 2?) However the behaviour described by equetion § Ls very different for two reasons: 1} WZ is typically 400 times larger, (see below), and 2) the damping term is up to two orders of magnitude larger than for the best passive system. The dynamic response of the actively isolaced mass M is therefore equivalent to that of amass M sitting on a very staff and highly overdamped soring. Gecause of the large spring constant the mass apocars to be rigidly attached to the floor, and because of high damping the dynamic response to an applied force F is much smaller than that of a [ree mass Me At is tempting to descrive the dynamic response of the actively isolated mass as being that of a very much larger free mass, in other words of an effective mass M’ many times the actual mass M, Equation § shows, owever, that this is strictly incorrect. Since the damping term is dominant, the dynamic response must be described az that of # body moving ina highly viscous mecium, and not that of a large free mass. 160 / SPIE Vol. 792 Vibration Contio! in Optics 20d Mettogy (18875Detailed Cansteuction In designing a practical device basei on the above principle two points must be borne in mind. First, the device discusged above isolates in one Siractioa (and at one location! only. A minimum af six such devices must Oe attached ta the body to be asoloted since the body has six degrees of freedom (3 translational, 2 rotational). Second, tie gain of the Feedback loop cannot, an practice, be increased indefinitely at some point the gain at nigh frequencies, ‘where mechanical resonances cause vhave ShLECS, WILL bo Pigh enough co couse osczilatada. Rigid construction 1s required to place these mecianical resonances at suff.cacntly high frequencies. Note Unat this epolies maisly to the unSt comprising the accelerometer and elecrromechanieal traneducers although Fesonances in the supported body can oe troublesome if they are not well damped und occur at frequencies where the fecdback oop still has significant gain. [his latter suggests fn upper Ezeguency at which cas gain in the feedvace Lobo should fall to unity oF che order of 200-300 Ha. The lower frequency lait mey be set around 1/2 - 1 He for most ourposes since buildings have very little vibration amplitude below about 5 Hz. There are wore yeactical considerations — the chosen aereteromater becomes Rossy at very low fraquencies ani high gain electronics with very low frequency response may have annoyingly long settling times» Havang chosen upper end Lower cut-off frequencies OF about 300 and 1/2 Hz resueccivaly, one must determine the spring constant of the passive support structure. This can be Getermned by considering the open loop gain G oF the feedback lace which has the torm o-—Kie +iTw where K is a constant and [7 is a small damping term associated with the passive support Structure, it is seea that the gaun is maxigum at the mechanical resonance of the system without feedback, and the feedback 15 exactly our of phase. At lower trétuencies the gain falls off pzcportional tu w aad the feedback signal leads by 90%, At higher Frequencies (he gain Talis off preportional ta 1/o and the feedback signa) lays by 90%. taking the frequency limits ae those freguencues at whch G = +/- i we find approKMAtelY Over G/K ONG Wyogge Kis 2/G from which it iy sea the mechanical fesonant frequency b, of the syste without Pesdback should be chosen to lie neas tha germetric mean of ch@ extrem operating fzequencies of the teeddscx loop, b-e- 1B the Fange @/2m of 10-20 2. In principle the dyramic :solation elerents can be attached to any rigidly constructed end resiliently mounted body, The desien below applies to a general purpose table that, in its protorype form is capable of supporting loads up to about 100 kg. but it can be Steaightforwarely scaled to one that will supoort larger losds Referring to Fig. S, the table top ia supported near its corners ca Four supports, oach consisting of a resillent rubber block # and a Sase S. The thickness and area of the Fubber blocks are chasen so that the vertical resonant frequency of the table top plus supported mass lies in the range 10-30 Hz. pntivipration elements are attacned at various points to tne table top a6 andicated by che arrows. A minimum o£ six are required but more may de used, for example, to increase the correction forces available, A convenient arrangement involving e1ght elements is illustrated Figure 5 Resiliently mounted table top with eight antivibration elements indicated by the arrows. [SPIE Vol 792 Viteatan Contrl i Optics and Mewotogy {1 9871/ 161The desagn of each element is illustrated in Fig.6. A bracket @ attached to the table too susgerts ag electromechaaseal transducer LS oa its lower surface and an accelerometer Ron ite upper surface, Cae transducer LS supplics @ force proportional to the applied current. For this puryone a loudspeaker iz used with @ block C glued to the center of the fone in Sntimata contact with the volee ceil, The force provided by the transducer and the component of acceleration measured by A both lie along the common axis of A and US. Since the forca ust act between (he lobe and tho bracket B, the end of the Crensducer fannie Leon she pracket 8 must ba coupled to the floor in euch a mannor that the coupling Lass A P2T STEEL Lass Figure § (a) Dotatlod construction of antivinration element and (b) exploded view or thermally compensated accelerometer. is rigid in the directioa Jf Une common axis o£ A and LS and compliant perpendicular te thas direction. Une transverse compliance is simaly achieved ey attachins to the vlock © a steel boll, which zests on and a9 firmly beld dy tha magnet (MAG). During a transverse Gisclacement, the block C plus ball rasks on the magaet, causing @ rotation of the lowdsnonker voice coil. During an excessive transverse displacement, the vall may slide on the magnet, thus preventing damage to the loudspeaker. The magnet itseif is held ine Criction coupling which @llows it to slide along the common axis of A and LS whenever a certain force is exceeded. Clearly this frictional force must be Less than the magnetic eoupling force hetween ball and magnet, out must be greater than the maximum force generated by the transducer LS. The above combination of Ball, magnet and fraction coupling forms a completely self-sligning counlina between the [last ang rhe transducer LS. he vinsntion element depicted in 11g. © acts xn the vertical direction. For the horizontelly acting elements of Fig. 5, the bracket B supporting the clement is rotated through 36” ana the friction coupling holding the magnet is appropriately altered. The Following qualities ara required of tne acceleromater: (a) The Inwest mechanical resonance aust exceed 10 KK2 So That adequate gain may be applied in the feedback loog. To echieve this, the PZT must be used in the compressions] mode; bending wodes (binorph devices} are too sort. (b) The PZP element 15 a pure capacitance C and requires o resistence R in pareliel to define the de conditions. The lowest frequency, 1/RC, to which the element will respond must be chosen lower than the lowest Ereguency component of the vibrations to be compensated, The resistance R causes a mean square noise voltage ar c Por typical values of Cw 1 aP, the noise voltages are on the order of about 4 pV. The mass m must Ye chosea iargé enough so that rhe smallest accelerations to be measured will give Signals larger than this limiting noise value. For tne design considered here this would require m to be about 5 kg which ie too high for con~ venience. A compromise was reached wath m= 1 kg and cone degradation of perfomance below 5 az. OV? = 4 kTRAS where 3f« URC, so that AV?» le} Pan material is aleo pyroelectric, typically producing signals of 10 v per Gesree of temperature change. A change of 1 px would produce @ signal larcer then the thermal noise voltage discussed above; "it 1s therefore necessary ta thermally isolate the PZT and te use sowe thermal compeasarion. 162 / SPIE Vol 732 Vieration Gootrol un Opes ane Metrofogy {19875The detailed seceleromoter construction is shown in Fig. §{b|. The silver-coatea PzT disc is adiaily polarized snd attached on one surface to = glass aise which supports a boss for atteching the mass m, The other surface of the P2T has an annulus of the silver coating removed. A steel thrust piece is attached to tne cuter ring of tne PzT, Electrical contacts are made to the thrust siece and che center of the PZ?. The whole constructaon sits on another glass disc (for thermal isolation), which in turn sits on che aces lerameter base: Notice that 9 temperature change will nroduce equal and opposite charges on the two Faces of the PZT dise Ut will oroduce no voltage difference between the outer ring and centor of the lower surface of the P2T. On the other hand, an seceleration will cause 9 change of force across the outer ring of the PZ? only and will, therefore, produce a voltage eitterence, Figure 7, Block diagram of electronic circuit for dynamic vibration isolation. ‘The accelerometer signal 1s procesed by the circuit shown an Fig. 7 before being fed back to the clectromechanical transducer LS as the coriection signal. The basic Processing consists of integration, with some low and high-frequency attenuation, A preamplifier A, with 1000 MR input impedance is followed by a variable gain stage A. employing a tkansconductance operational amplifier. The signal is then fed to. thé integrator Ay. DC blockig by the capacitor Cy passes only signals with tzequeccy highes than a predetermined low-frequency limat (typidelly 1 Hz! and thus, together with resistor cheater. the ovtput of the Loveprater te Finally edplitice ay he cover’ atose_ ter wetoce Rye oe, Frequency attenuation above 2 frequency of around 200 Hz end eBlows*highes adin to be used in the feedback loop before the onset of high-frequency asezllation. Note that this high Frequency compensation is a comromse. The stability of the loop is decreased in the zange 200-000 Az and allows structural resonances in the supported body to lead to resonances an the transmissibility in this range. The low frequency gain is, however, thereby increased. The power stage Ay, illustrated in greater detail in Fig. @, is a class D switch-mode amplifaer giving a véry igh power-conveeion efficiency. The waveform Vj, Vp, and UV. are Shown in Fag. 9. The diodes D, introtice a nonlinearity at large input vofiages, Bnien provents the stage from being dvven inte saturation. The stage con deliver up to 30 W but jinder normal conditions (in a laboratory with a maxamun acceleration of around 10 cn/sec* at 20 #2) the power requized ie unde: 1 wper Ssolation element. Full power is normally only required for isolating against forces Supplied directly to the supported mass N (e.g., hand contact). Because of the large difference between mean power and maximum power it is convenient to vse rechargeavie batteries a8 the power source with a trickle charger providing sufficient power to cover the mean consumption. As mentioned above, the PZT accelerometer is noisy at very low frequencies, While this in itself cannot cause instability in the loop, the electronics will see this as an ‘SPIE Vol 732 Vibration Cora in Optics and Metrology (#987) / 169.apparent azcelsration and try to reduce it, As a result the Fecdbeck loop has to work hard ana a1 opposite acceleration will be produced in the table top. To avoid this some attenuation nas been intreduced inte the Leop {not shown in Figure 7) below about 5 Bz, but at a price - the noise movements are ne longer troublesome tut the extra phase lead introduced by the attenuation maxes the loop only marginally stable ana leads to a weak zegonance an the transmissibility around 1 Hz, This whole problem wovld be avoided and low Frequency isolation improved by use of noase feae accelerometers, come 72 ca3290 11 252002 12 SKM Figure 8 Clase p output stage Figure 9. Waveforms associated with the ourput staga of fag. 6 Isolation Properties The Eranamissibility of the system is plotted in Figure 10 and compared with the ideal curve of Figure 3. Tha horizontal isolation 1s the same es the vertical. The discrepancy between the two curves at low frequencies is enticely due to the extra attenuation introduced to avoid the accelerameter noise. his fact cannot be too strongly emphasiszed “itis not an intrinsic property of the actave isolation system. Subsequent experiments 10 TRANSMISSIBILITY a ww? I or 10 [o} 100 100 FREQUENCY (Hz) Figure 10, Measured tranemtssibility (solia dane) compared with that for the ideal system using noise-tese accelerometers. Using @iFferent detectors have shown that the ideal isolation curve can indeed be achieved. 168 / SPIE Vot 732 Vibrauon Control in Oates ace Merolegy (1987)Applications The table described here, using dynamic vibration isolation, is essentially rigid at frequencies greater than absut 1 Hz, ‘Thus, when used as a support for a high-resolution optical or electron merescope, foreas introduced by the oparatar’s hands or pumping lines faze absorbed without producing moverent an the table top. Similaz arguments apply when it is used as a support for a spectromster; a Fabry-Perot interferometer has been operated on a predecessor of the present. table for several years with quite tnprecedented resvlution, We have high expectations that the table could be effectively used as a support for Step-and-repeat cameras, whicn are presently running into problems as resblution is pushed to the limits, “The dyaamic rigidity offered by this table should Closely approximate the ideal rigid base on which instruments are designed to operate. The following gaper by Turechek will aiscuse in aetall different areas of application of the system. Agknowledgements, Tr 4s a pleasure to thank M. Tgetgel and £. Moser for their advice and help in constructing the systen. References 1. Hanson, S., "Isolator", U.8. Patent 3,952,973. 21 sandexcock, J.R., Tgetgel, M., Meter, E., "A Dynamic Antivibration Suoport™, RGA Review, Vol. 46, 9. 70-20. i985. ‘SPIE Vol 722 Vieration Control n Opies and Morology (1987)/ 165