Introduction to Single Degree of Freedom, Free Undamped Vibration

Figure 1: One DOF, Free Undamped Vibration

A body of mass m is free to move along a fixed horizontal surface. A

spring of stiffness k is fixed at one end and attached to the mass at the other

end. The horizontal force F can be used to disturb the mass or

control it.

At equilibrium the spring force (kx) is equal to 0. Define x = 0 to be at the

spring's equilibirum. Moving the mass to the right (+x) will cause the spring

to pull the mass to the left. Moving the mass to the left of x = 0

causes the spring to push the mass to the right. In this ideal

system there is no damping so moving the mass to position x0 will cause the mass to oscillate between -x0 and

+x0.

Equations for Single Degree of Freedom, Free Undamped Vibration[1]

Table 1: System Givens
Givens

Constant Mass

Spring stiffness is Constant

Spring mass is negligible

Figure 2: One DOF, Free Undamped Vibration Free Body Diagram

Modeling Stages

Devise a mathematical or
Stage I: physical model of the system to
be analyzed.
From the model, write the
Stage II:
equations of motion.
Evaluate the system response to
Stage III:
relevant specific excitation.

Upon examination of the free body diagram (FBD) the equation of motion for the system is

(2.1)
or
The solution to this simple harmonic motion equation is

(2.2)

where

and are constants.

A and B can be found by considering the initial conditions and the natural frequency . Substituting (2.2)

into (2.1)

Since (otherwise no motion),

rad/s

and

Now

at

thus

, and therefore

and

at

thus
 , and therefore

that is,

(2.3)

System parameters control ω and the type of motion but not the amplitude. The mass is important but the

weight is not; so for a given system the natural frequency, ω, is independent of the local gravitational field.

The frequency of vibration , f, is given by

(2.4)
, or Hz

The period of oscillation, τ, is the time taken for 1 complete cycle.

(2.5)
seconds

Control of a Single Degree of Freedom, Free Undamped Vibration

System

State-Space Formulation

Using the equations of motion we can create a state-space model of the system.

Use the following substitution

 then

where

is

is the control force.

and

where

is

is

is the output.

For this example we want to control position so

and

Transfer Function Formulation

The transfer function equivalent to this state-space example is

Figure 3: Sample Single DOF Undamped System with k = 1 and m = 10

This is equivalent to a standard 2nd order system where

, and . Considering a second

order system with a damping coefficient of 0 we would

expect a large spike at the natural frequency of

Controller Design

This simple single DOF undamped system will be used to

explore a couple of different controller design techniques.

Simple Integrator

Figure 4: Open Loop for simple integrator controller

The following MATLAB code will create a state space object

>> A = [0, -k/m ; 1, 0];

>> B = [1 ; 0];
>> C = [0, 1];
>> D = 0;
>> sys = ss(A, B, C, D);

Adding an integrator (transfer function object) for control

produces the following open loop (as a transfer function

object)

>> int = tf([1], [1 0]);

>> ol = int * tf(sys);

To form the closed loop

>> cl = ol / (1 + ol);
>> [z, p, k] = zpkdata(cl, 'v')
z=0
0 +/- 0.3162i
p=0
0.4833 +/- 0.8949i
-0.9667
0.0000 +/- 0.3162i
k=1

Note that the closed loop system is unstable -

2 poles in right half plane (RHP).

PI-Lead
Figure 5: PI-Lead Controller

This author (Gabe) has seen a lot of 2nd order systems at work. Typically these systems are well controlled by a

PI-Lead controller. This type of controller combines a PI controller with a Lead Controller to improve the phase

margin of the system under control.

The PI Controller has the following form

The Lead Controller has the following form

where

so that the phase "hump" created

by the controller is positive.

Figure 5: PI-Lead Open Loop System

I haven't found many resources on how

to decide where to place the PI controller

zero. My thinking is that you place the

zero where you need to in order to

achieve the disturbance rejection that the

system requires. In other words if you

are controlling a 2nd order system that

requires 40 dB of disturbance rejection at

1 Hz then your PI zero needs to be no

lower than 100 Hz; this is because the

integrator will give you approximately 20 dB per decade of rejection. Let's assume that a PI zero at 100 Hz will

provide ample disturbance rejection.

The Lead controller is incorporated to improve phase margin. Phase margin is calculated at the open loop

crossover frequency so the peak phase improvement from the Lead controller should occur at approximately the

open loop crossover. The peak phase improvement occurs at the geometric mean. For the sake of this example

let's place the open loop crossover at 200 Hz.

The MATLAB commands for the PI-Lead are

>> f = 200 * (2*pi); % Open Loop Crossover
>> z = 100 * (2*pi); % Zero for PI
>> X = 10; % Separation factor for Lead
>> a = f / sqrt(X); % Zero for Lead
>> b = f * sqrt(X); % Pole for Lead
>> cntl = tf([1 z], [1 0]) * tf([1 a], [1 b]);

The open loop system is formed by

>> ol = cntl * tf(sys);

The gain adjustment to achieve an open loop crossover at f

>> [mag] = bode(ol, f);

>> ol = 1/mag * ol;

The closed loop system is formed like this

>> cl = ol / (1 + ol);

Figure 5: PI-Lead Step Response

MATLAB's isstable command returns

false for the closed loop system. The

margin command will return a plot with

28° of phase margin. However, the

pole command will show the only

unstable poles to be approximately 2E-

16. This may well be a truncation error.

The result of the step command does

not look unstable.

Final Notes on Control of

Single DOF Undamped
System

We know that stable 2nd order systems

can be created. This system, without damping, is not really stable. The integrator and PI-Lead controls were

designed to control the position of the mass m.

The main part of the 2nd order systems that is missing is the damping. Damping operates on the velocity of the

mass m. This example could be reformulated as a velocity control problem. When you wish to control position but

do it through control of the velocity some alterations are required.

Notes
Beards, C. F. 1995 Engineering Vibration Analysis with Applications to Control Systems. ISBN 034063183X