Article

Active vibration control in a cantilever-like

structure: a time delay compensation
approach

Journal of Vibration and Control

19(5) 674685
! The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/1077546312437802
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Min-Qiang Shao and Wei-Dong Chen

Abstract
The aim of this study is to develop a method of active control based on time delay compensation for the low-order
modes of a cantilever-like structure suffering from complex excitations. The time delay is induced by an anti-aliasing filter
and a high-order digital low-pass filter, which are introduced to prevent frequency aliasing and observation spillover.
However, approaches for time delay processing in active control systems have in the past been model dependent. This
paper adopts a velocity feedback control law to increase system damping, and constructs an autoregressive moving
average (ARMA) model for eliminating the time delay caused by filters. The ARMA model is model-free and its coefficients are adjusted adaptively according to the outputs of the system. In practical applications, the direct current (DC)
excursion induced by the calculation is also considered, and a proper method of DC cancellation is adopted. A windtunnel model with rear sting is used as a cantilever-like structure in the experiments. The results reveal that the first
mode vibrations of the model are effectively suppressed by this controller when the structure suffers from complex
excitations.

Keywords
Active vibration control, time delay, signal processing, phase compensation, forecasting
Received: 30 September 2011; accepted: 10 January 2012

1. Introduction
A cantilever-like structure is an innite-dimensional
distributed structure. It is impossible to control or estimate innite modes, so vibration control in a cantilever-like structure is limited to a nite number of modes.
Problems therefore arise in both observation and control spillover because of the mode truncation (Balas,
1978; Meirovitch, 1987). Mei and Mace (2002) applied
a feedback wave controller to reduce the resonant
response of high-frequency residual modes, and thereby
reduce the eects of control spillover.
Another serious problem in discrete control systems
is frequency aliasing. Frequency aliasing occurs when
the observed signal is transferred from analog to digital
form (Weleratna, 2002). An analog anti-aliasing lter is
an eective method for preventing frequency aliasing,
and a low-pass digital lter can deal with observation
spillover. These two kinds of lters are commonly used
in signal acquisition and processing (Bilinsky and

Mikelsons, 1990; Opperman and Linde, 1991;

DAntonia et al., 1999; Bao et al., 2009). However, lters can aect the stabilization of controlled systems.
Liu and Hu (2010) discuss the instability induced by
group delay caused by digital lters in a double pendulum control system. Control systems with time delay
have been studied by many researchers. Cai and
Huang (2003) deal with the input time delay problem
by applying an integral transform in controller design.
Expanded-dimension methods have also been applied
to eliminate the invariant time delay in discrete-time
systems (Cai and Huang, 2002). Haraguchi and

State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control of Mechanical Structures,

Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China
Corresponding author:
Min-Qiang Shao, State Key Laboratory of Mechanics and Control of
Mechanical Structures, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and
Astronautics, 29 Yudao Street, Nanjing 210016, China
Email: m.q.shao@nuaa.edu.cn

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Shao and Chen

675

Hu (2008) have now proposed a state transformation

approach to eliminate system time delay. This method
does not increase the dimensions of systems, and the
computation during the control process is much simpler
than for expanded-dimension methods. However, all of
the methods mentioned here are model dependent, and
cannot be applied to systems with output time delay.
This paper deals with the problems induced by variable output time delay in a control system. The
dynamic function of the variable time delay system is
resistant to analysis, so an all-pass lter is used to transform the original system into an invariant time delay
system. Various approaches have been proposed for
designing all-pass lters to satisfy a given group delay
specication (Bernhardt, 1980; Jing, 1987; Reddy and
Swamy, 1990), but all of these approaches have a
common problem, which is that the process of phase
compensation inevitably adds another additional time
delay. Piskorowski and de Anda (2009) present a new
class of delay-compensated parameter-varying low-pass
elliptic lters with a transient response of short duration. Compensation for lter-induced time delay has
also been studied (Jaskula and Kaszynski, 2004;
Lee and Bien, 2004, 2006; Piskorowski and Barcinski,
2008). However, none of the proposed methods eliminates the time delay.
Signal forecasting is an approach for eliminating the
invariant time delay. The adaptive forecasting of time
series has been studied extensively in recent decades, and
applied in many domains, such as economics, electric
power systems, neural networks, etc. (Paarmann and
Najar, 1995; Paolo and Mattias, 2010; Wong et al.,
2010). In order to simplify the calculations and to
work with an active vibration control system, a modied
forecasting method is proposed here. With this modied
signal forecasting, combined with phase compensation,
it is possible to eliminate the variable output time delay.
The rest of this paper is organized as follows. In
Section 2, a control law is proposed for the cantileverlike structure. Section 3 discusses the problems associated with group delay compensation after introducing
an anti-aliasing lter and high-order digital low-pass
lter; the direct current (DC) excursion induced by the
control algorithm is also discussed. In Section 4, a modied forecasting method is proposed to eliminate the
invariant time delay, and the identication of the coecients of the ARMA model is discussed in more detail.
Experiments are implemented in Section 5. Finally, this
paper ends with some concluding remarks in Section 6.

2. Cantilever-like structure and design

of a controller
The experiment of the wind tunnel aerodynamic
model is a common practice in the aircraft design.

Attackanglemechanism
Accelerometer

Actuator

Windtunnelmodel

Poweramplifier
Constant
current
source
Anti aliasing filter

Aquisition
card
Computer

Figure 1. Wind-tunnel model with rear sting and its control

system.

Most aircraft models are xed on rear sting supports.

The model and the rear sting make up a cantilever-like
structure. Dangerous vibration occurs when the structure suers strong wind load. The biggest displacement
is induced by low frequency resonance modes of the
structure. In general, the rst mode brings the largest
oscillation. Thus, it is appropriate to design controllers
aiming at the rst modes of the structure. Figure 1
shows a wind-tunnel model xed on a rear sting, and
its vibration control system. It is a cantilever-like structure with control devices.
The excitations acting on the structure are unknown.
The only information for us is the acceleration as measured by an accelerometer xed onto the structure.
Figure 2 presents an instance of an actual model suffering from strong wind load. The output signal of
acceleration includes vibrations of various modes. It
would be hard to design a controller to dampen all
modes appearing in the output. Fortunately, a lowfrequency vibration is obvious, and it has the largest
magnitude in the frequency domain, as shown in
Figure 2(b). The velocity and displacement during the
vibration are mainly attributable to the rst mode of
the structure.
By constructing a nite-element model of the cantilever-like structure, we can convert the continuous
model into a system with nite degrees of freedom,
and the dynamic model of the system with control
can be described as
Mzt C_zt Kzt Pt Ut

where M, C and K are, respectively, the discrete mass,

damping and stiness matrixes; Pt is the input force
on the nodes of the discrete elements, and is unknown;
Ut is the control force; zt is the vertical displacement; and M, C, K 2 RNN , P, U, z 2 RN1 .

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676

Journal of Vibration and Control 19(5)

(a) 20

(b)

10

4000

Magnitude

Signal of acceleration(V)

8Hz

5000

15

0
5

3000

2000

10
1000
15
20
45

45.5

46

46.5

47

Time(s)

200

400

600

800

1000

Frequency(Hz)

Figure 2. Acceleration response of an actual model suffering from strong wind load (sample frequency is 2 kHz).

Assume that the structure is a proportionally

damped system, and the damping can be described as
C K M, where ,  2 R. Thus, Equation (1)
by zt (qt, where (
can be decoupled

1 2    N , i is the ith mode, and satises
(T M( I, (T C( ,, (T K( :. According to
Equation (1), one has
q t ,_qt :qt pt ut,

where diag2i !i i 1, . . . , N , i is the ith damping

2
2
ratio; : diag!
is the ith natural
 i i 1, . . . , N , !
Ti
frequency; q q1 q2    qN
is the decoupled
coordinate; p (T P; u (T U.
The rst mode giving rise to the main vibration of
the structure can be separated out from Equation (2),
q 1 t 21 !1 q_1 t !21 q1 t p1 t u1 t,
~ q_~ t :~
~ qt p~ t ~
q~ t ,
ut,

3a
3b


T
~ q2 q3    qN ,
where p1 t T1 P, u1 T1 U, q
~ diag2i !i  i 2, . . . , N,
,
: diag!2i  i 2,


T
T
~ P, ~
~ U,(
~ 2 3    N .
. . . , N, p~ (
u(
The displacement response of the structure is
T

~ q: 4
~ q1 ~
qT 1 q1 (~
(
_
~ qt.
It is assumed that z t 1 q1 t and ~zt (~
_
_
Thus, zt z t ~zt, the response z t is generated by the rst mode of the structure, and ~zt is the
response induced by other modes. Considering the rst
mode of the vibration is the main part, a controller is

designed to respond against _

z t. That is
Zt

_
ut k
z j d,
5

zt qt 1

_
_
where z j 2 z is a part of the acceleration response
on the jth point of the testing model, k is the feedback
coecient and k 4 0, ut is the input of the control
force on a point of the structure.
Through solving the integral in Equation (5), the
algorithm is transformed into a velocity-like feedback
control method as follows:
_
_
ut k z j t c
6
_
_
_
_
where c k z j 0, and z j 0 is the initial value of
velocity response at the testing point, and is undetermined. Thus, the algorithm Equation (5) reduces to a
velocity feedback with an undetermined DC signal.
In order to facilitate the evaluation of the eect of
the controller, one needs to consider the situation without DC. In this case, Equation (6) becomes a pure
velocity feedback control algorithm. As we know, this
method produces good stability and is robust for a
single-degree-of-freedom (S-DOF) system. However,
the cantilever structure here is not an S-DOF system,
it is just a single input and single output (SISO) system.
Assume that the accelerometer is xed on the jth node
on the structure and the control force acts on the
ith node. Thus, the external disturbance
and control

T
force can be described as P P1 P2    PN
T
,U 0, . . . , 0, Ui , 0, . . . , 0 . By multiplying 1 at the
both sides of Equation (3a) and considering the
_
assumption of z t 1 q1 t, one obtains

_
_
_
_
z t 21 !1 z t !21 z t 1 p1 t 1 u1 t 7
where p1 T1 P and u1 T1 U. There follows,

_
_
_
_
z t 21 !1 z t !21 z t
1

N
X
k1

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1k Pk t 1 1i Ui t

677

where 1k is the kth element of 1 . Since the accelerometer is xed on the jth node of the structure, the SISO
dynamic function about the rst mode is derived as
follows

Magnitude(dB)

Shao and Chen

_
_
_
_
z j t 21 !1 z j t !21 z j t
1 j 1k Pk t 1 j 1i Ui t

_
where z j t is the displacement of the jth node about
the rst mode, 1i , 1j are the ith and jth elements of the
rst mode shape 1 .
From Equation (6), the velocity feedback control
algorithm without DC can be described as
_
_
ut k z j t. Let Ui t ut, and substitute it
into Equation (9). The closed-loop dynamic function
is then

_
_

_
_
z j t 21 !1 1j 1i k z j t !21 z j t
N
X

60
50

100

150

200

100

150

200

k1

20
40

80
0

1j 1k Pk t:

10

k1

The control algorithm changes the damping of the

system. In order to increase the damping of the control
system and produce good control performance, the
relationship 1j 1i 4 0 should be satised. This ensures
that the shape values of the vibration mode will retain
the same symbol at both the point of action of the
control force and the test point of acceleration. The
shape of the rst mode of the cantilever-like structure
is always on the same side of the x-axis, and thus the
inequality above is always satised. In other words, the
control force can operate on any part of the cantilever
structure, and the controlled system is always stable.

3. Higher mode signals and DC

excursion
3.1. Inutility mode signals
The vibration signal zj t includes the response of the

_
structure in the rst mode z j , and higher modes z~j t.

_
Equation (5) refers only to the rst mode signal z j .
The existence of z~j t could therefore have an eect
which negates the control and stability of the controlled
system. It is necessary to discuss methods for canceling
higher mode signals.
There are two problems in signal acquisition. The
rst is that the signal includes vibrations at various
modes, and only one or a part of them are needed.
The second is the limitations of sampling frequency,
which cannot be set to whatever value we desire,
and which may induce frequency aliasing and

Phase(degree)

N
X

200
400
600
800
0

50

Frequency(Hz)

Figure 3. Frequency characteristics of an anti-aliasing filter.

observation spillover. These two problems can lead to

instability in the controlled system. Analog anti-aliasing lters are used extensively in practical projects, and
perform well in terms of signal processing. The lter
can attenuate part of the high-order mode signal;
another important benet is that it helps to resist observation spillover. However, the lter may give rise to
nonlinear phase-frequency characteristics, and induces
an undetermined time delay as the signals pass through
the lter. Figure 3 shows the characteristics of an antialiasing lter in the frequency domain. The pass band
of the lter is 0-100 Hz.
The anti-aliasing lter deals with the problems of the
frequency aliasing and part of the observation spillover
induced by high-order modes. Signals from other
modes still exist as disturbances, because part of the
higher mode signals is of low enough frequency to get
through the pass band of the anti-aliasing lter. These
residual mode signals still exist as nonfunctional noise.
Thus, a low-pass digital lter should be designed to
clear the residual mode signals which are not needed.
The parameters of the digital lter are chosen as
!p 0:15, !s 0:45, Rp 3 dB, Rs 60 dB, where
!p , !s are the normal cuto frequency of the pass
band and normal start frequency of the stop band, Rp
is the maximum ripple of the pass band, and Rs is the
minimum attenuation of the stop band. The cuto frequency of the pass band and the start frequency of the
stop band are 15 Hz and 45 Hz, respectively, when the
sample frequency is 200 Hz. The frequency domain
characteristics of the digital lter are shown in Figure 4.
As shown in Figures 3 and 4, the phase has nonlinear
characteristics with respect to frequency. These characteristics induce variable time delays. The group time
delay is

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g 

d
d!

11

678

Journal of Vibration and Control 19(5)

3. calculate cn based on pn

Magnitude(dB)

8
n 0, M=2,
>
<0
cn pn=n
0 5 n 5 M=2,
>
:
cM  n M=2 5 n 5 M:

100
200
300
0

20

40

60

80

100

Phase(degrees)

4. introduce sign function, where

200
400
600

20

40
60
Frequency(Hz)

80

100

Figure 4. Frequency characteristics of the digital low-pass filter.

where is the phase of the lters and is a function of

frequency !.
It is hard to compensate for variable delays in time
domain. Using Equation (11), a linear relationship
should be established between phase and frequency in
order to ensure invariable group delay. However, the
combination of lters has nonlinear phase characteristics with respect to frequency, so phase compensation is
necessary. The digital all-pass lter has a function
allowing adjustment of the phase of the signal, and
this is helpful as we obtain an invariable time delay
system.
The general form of the all-pass lter is described by
PN a
n
Nz
n0 aNn z
Hapf z
P
12
N
a
n
Dz
n0 an z
where Na is the order of the all-pass lter, a0 1 and
ai i 1    N is the constant coecients of the lter.
Substituting z ej! into Equation (12) yields
PN

j!n
n0 an e

Hapf ej! ej! PN

n0

an ej!n

13



where ! 2 f ; f is the frequency, and f 2 0; fs =2 ,
fs is the system sample frequency.


From Equation (13), Hapf ej!  1, and the
unknown coecients ai i 1    N can be calculated
from the phase-frequency characteristics. An eective
method for designing the coecients of all-pass lters is
described as follows (Reddy and Swamy, 1990):
1. calculate the time delay sequence without excursion

k d k  d =2, where d k d !!2=M ,
M is the length of the fast FourierPtransform
M1
1
(FFT) used in the computation, d M
k0 d k;
2. obtain series pn by an inverse FFT (IFFT) of k;

8
n 0, M=2,
>
<0
sgnn 1
0 5 n 5 M=2,
>
:
1 M=2 5 n 5 M:
5. calculate the FFT transform of cn to obtain series
Ck, where Ck has the phase-frequency characteristics kof the lter we need;
6. calculate gn sgnn  cn, where 0  n 5 M;
7. calculate

 the FFT of gn, and present the result as
lnXk;


8. calculate Dk Xk  e jk , where k 0,
1, . . . , M  1;
9. calculate the IFFT transform of Dk, obtaining
d n;
10. conrm the coecients of the all-pass lter
an d n, where n 0, 1, . . . , NN 5 M.
The all-pass lter is designed for eliminating nonlinear phase characteristic induced by the anti-aliasing
lter and the digital low-pass lter. As shown in
Figure 5, when the signal x(t) passes through the
anti-aliasing lter, the low-pass lter and all-pass
lter, the phase of the output y(t) can be described as
follows:
y x AAF LPF APF

14

where x is the phase of signal x at time t; AAF , LPF

and APF are the phase variation induced by antialiasing lter, low-pass lter and all-pass lter, respectively. Since the ideal status is y x , the ideal phase
characteristic of all-pass lter is
APF AAF LPF

15

where AAF LPF is the phase of the combination of

the anti-aliasing and the low-pass lter. Thus, the ideal
phase characteristics of the lter are equal to the negative of the combination of the anti-aliasing and the
digital low-pass lter.
The combination of phase characteristic and the
result of phase compensation of all-pass lter are
shown in Figures 6 and 7, respectively. The normalized
frequency is used in the two gures, actual frequencies

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Shao and Chen

679

Figure 5. Signal flow of x(t).

where P
Na is the order of the all-pass lter,
M1
1
d M
k0 d k, d k is the group delay of an
all-pass lter.

100
anti aliasing filter
Phase(degrees)

200

3.2. Cancellation of DC excursion

Given the control algorithm of Equation (6), the inte-

300
digital filter

gral operation induces DC excursion. This result is cal

_
culated from Equation (5), of which the output is z j

400

500

600

with no DC excursion. If we consider a case in which

_
the output z j does include DC excursion, then substi-

combination of two filters

0.1
0.2
0.3
Normalized Frequency ( rad/sample)

0.4

0.5

Figure 6. Phase characteristic of the combination of the antialiasing and the low-pass filter against frequency.

600

A simple DC cancellation method is proposed,

which includes an important part as an average
solver. The average of a discrete time series
P data with

invariable length is dened as xk
N1 N1
i0 xk  i;
the dierence of the average yields

negative phase of combination filter

phase of all pass filter

Phase(degrees)

500

  xk
  1
xk

400

1
xk  xk  N
N

17

where xk is the data of discrete time series, N is the

length of data, k means the current position in the
series.
Assume that xk  n xkzn , where z1 is the discrete operator. Substituting it into Equation (17) yields

300

200

100

tute it into Equation (5), the control algorithm yields an

_
_
unstable form ut k z j t c1 t c2 . Thus, DC
cancellation is necessary to ensure the stability of the
control algorithm.

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25
0.3
0.35
Normalized Frequency( rad/sample)


xk
H 1 z1 xk

0.4

N

is a transfer function.
where H 1 z1 N1 1z
1z1
By removing the average part from series x and
substituting it into Equation (18), a new series without
DC excursion is derived

Figure 7. Phase compensation result of the all-pass filter

(N 30).

are obtained by multiplying by fs =2, where fs is the

sample frequency of the system.
When the signal passes through the all-pass lter, an
invariable time delay is generated as
a Na  d

18

16

~

xk
xk  xk
H1 z1 xk
1

N

19

z
~
, xk
is the series withwhere H1 z1 N1 N1Nz
1z1
out DC excursion.
An order-one DC eliminator is dened as in
Equation (19), and its magnitude and phase

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680

Journal of Vibration and Control 19(5)

20

20

N=50

Magnitude(dB)

Magnitude(dB)

N=50
0
N=10
20
40
0

N=20

0.2
0.4
0.6
Normalized Frequency ( rad/sample)

0.8

0.2

0.4
0.6
0.8
Normalized Frequency ( rad/sample)

100
N=10

Phase(degrees)

Phase(degrees)

100

N =20

20
40

N =10

N=20

50

N=50
0
0

0.6
0.4
0.2
Normalized Frequency ( rad/sample)

0.8

Figure 8. Magnitude and phase of the order-one DC eliminator

against frequency.

characteristics are presented in Figure 8 against frequencies of the transfer function. It shows the DC eliminator is stable at all frequencies, and the large
attenuation occurs at zero frequency. The variability
of phase is between 0 and 90 , the range is smaller
than high-pass lters. But there are too many ripples
in the magnitude and phase curves. Let
H 2 z1 H 21 z1 , the transfer function of the order
two DC eliminator yields
 
 
H2 z1 1  H 2 z1

1 N2  1  2N2 z1 N2 z2 2zN  z2N

:
N2
1  2z1 z2
20

N=10
N =20

50

N =50
0
50

0.2
0.4
0.6
Normalized Frequency ( rad/sample)

0.8

Figure 9. Magnitude and phase of the order-two DC eliminator

against frequency.

close to zero at the relevant frequencies. Thus, the DC

eliminator does not introduce a time delay to be considered. The whole normalized time delay of the system
is a , from Equation (16). Thus, the sample delay is
Nd a int

21

where a int rounds a to the nearest integers.

The following autoregressive moving average
(ARMA) model is introduced to describe the discrete
delay system using the sample delay,
^  Nd
xk

Nd
X

^  Nd  i
ai xk

i1

Figure 9 presents the magnitude and phase of the

order-two DC eliminator against frequencies with different length N. The ripples of magnitude and phase
curves attenuate much faster than with the order-one
eliminator. The only fault is that the maximum ripple
magnitude is larger than that of the order-one eliminator over the same N. To prevent this being a problem,
the frequency of the maximum ripple should be smaller
than the eective frequency of the system.

Md
X

bi xk  2Nd  i wk

22

i1

^  Nd is the estimation of xk  Nd , wk is
where xk
the error of estimation, ai , bi are coecients, and Nd ,
Md are constant positive integers.
Dene a new set of variables as
^  Nd  1,    xk
^  2Nd , xk  2Nd  1,
xkNd xk
   xk  2Nd  Md T

4. Compensation for invariant time

delay
4.1. Forecast of a time series model
An invariant time delay is generated when the signal
passes through the anti-aliasing lter, digital low-pass
lter and phase compensator. The phase characteristics
of the order-two DC eliminator show phase variation

By substituting these into Equation (22), one yields

^  Nd axkNd wk
xk

23



where a a1 , . . . , aNd , b1 , . . . , bMd .
Equation (23) is a classical average recursive (AR)
model, so the coecients of the model can be found
using the stochastic approximation (SA) method.

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Shao and Chen

681

Figure 10. The structure of time delay compensation (Ex is the estimation of x, y is the signal with time delay).

(a) 1.5

(b) 12

x
Ex

=50(sample)

x 10

a1

10

a2
a3

ai(i=15)

x,Ex

0.5
0

a4
a5

6
4

0.5
2

1.5
0

0.5

1
time(s)

1.5

2
0

0.5

1.5

time(s)

Figure 11. The result of forecasting against the stable harmonic signal (xt sin20  t, 0 1).

(a) 2.5

(b) 0.015

=50(sample)

a1

Ex

1.5

a2

0.01

a3

ai(i=15)

a4

x,Ex

0.5

a5

0.005

0
-0.5

-1
-1.5

-0.005

-2
-2.5

-0.01

time(s)

time(s)

Figure 12. The result of forecasting against the composite of stable harmonic signals (xt sin10  t sin20  t
0:5 sin30  t,0 0:5).

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682

Journal of Vibration and Control 19(5)

(a) 2

=50(sample)

(b) 0.02

a1

Ex

1.5

a2

0.01

a3

a4

ai(i=15)

x,Ex

0.5
0

a5

-0.01

-0.5
-0.02
-1
-0.03

-1.5
-2

-0.04

time(s)

time(s)

Figure 13. The result of forecasting against resultant signals (xt sin20  t  sin  t,0 5).

Figure 14. Experimental model and devices.

From the SA method, the estimate of the coecient

a is described as


^
ak ^
ak1 k xk yk  ^
ak1 xkNd
24

lim

k!1

lim k 0,

lim

k!1

k
X
i1

i 0,

25a

2i 5 1:

25c

i1

A simple form of k satisfying the above conditions is

where ^
ak1 is the last estimate of a, yk xk  Nd is
the current output of system, k is a scalar quantity that
satises the following Dvoretzky conditions
k!1

k
X

k

0
k

26

where 0 is a positive constant.

Thus, the estimation of xk without delay can be
described as

25b
^
xk
^ak xk

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27

Shao and Chen

683

Figure 15. Signal flow of the control system.

(b) 50

(a) 50

with control (k=160)

Displacement(mm)

Displacement(mm)

with control (k=100)

50
0

10

50
0

10

Time(s)

Time(s)

Figure 16. The displacement responses of the testing point of the model under complex excitations (the response without control
at the first 2 seconds, k is the gain of the controller, and (a) k 100, (b) k 160).

^  1,    xk
^  Nd 1, xk  Nd ,
where
xk xk
   xk  Nd  Md T :

4.2. Simulation
Assume a discrete time series yk with invariant time
delay. The original signal sequence without delay is
xk. Given the delay sample Nd , one has
yk xk  Nd . The structure of the delay compensation is shown in Figure 10. The time delay generator
in the gure is used for simulating the delay induced by
all kinds of lters, phase compensator and devices in
system.
The parameters of the ARMA model are settled as
Md Nd 50. From Equations (23), (24), (26) and
Figure 10, the eects of estimation using this model
on dierent kinds of time delay series are shown in
Figures 1113, respectively. The characteristics of
these series are come from the output signal of the
vibrant systems in actual application.

5. Experimental study
Experiments were designed to validate the theoretical
predictions of vibration control in a wind-tunnel model
with real sting. The actual experimental model and relative devices are shown in Figure 14. The accelerometer
is xed in the head of the model. It acquires the output
response of the model vibration, and the acceleration
signal is transformed from a charge into a voltage
signal by a constant current source. The anti-aliasing
lter is a pre-signal processing device, whose characteristics have been explained above. The analog signal is
transformed into discrete data by a data acquisition
card named DAQ2206 which is installed in the IPC
(Industrial Personal Computer). The control algorithm
and the rest of the signal processing can now be performed by the IPC, and the control signal is transformed from digital to analog form by the DAQ card.
The control actuator is xed inside the model, and
driven by the outputs of the DAQ card after

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684

Journal of Vibration and Control 19(5)

output and adapted to the rst mode of the structure,
which generates the structures main displacement
response. With eective processing of system outputs,
a physical controller applying this algorithm performed
successfully in experiments using a wind tunnel model
subject to complex excitation including harmonic and
random elements. Experimental results illustrate that
up to 90% of the displacement response can be eliminated with control, and show that it is more eective
than the pure velocity feedback method.

150
with control (k=100)

Displacement(mm)

100
50
0
50
100

Funding
150
0

Time(s)

Figure 17. Displacement response of the model under pure

velocity feedback control.

amplication by power amplier. An electromagnetic

actuator is mounted under the model. It is driven by
harmonic and random signals for simulating the situation in a wind tunnel. The combination of the two kinds
of excitations can induce complex responses, similar to
the responses of the wind tunnel model under strong
wind conditions.
The signal ow of the control system is shown in
Figure 15. The controller is designed as in Equation
(5). The characteristics of the anti-aliasing and digital
low-pass lters are described in Figures 3 and 4, respectively. After phase compensation, the delayed time
induced by the lters and phase compensation is
250 ms. And the time delay induced by hardware
devices is smaller than a sample time 5 ms, the sample
frequency here is 200 Hz.
The displacement responses of the model under control are illustrated in Figure 16, with the response measured by an accelerometer. The displacement in the
gure is calculated from acceleration. In order to validate the eectiveness of the proposed method and show
that it is dierent from other control methods, the
experiments regarding pure velocity feedback control
without lters and forecasting processing are implemented. The results are illustrated in Figure 17. It
shows that the responses of the system do not converge.

6. Conclusions
In this paper we have presented an application of signal
forecasting to damping vibration in a cantilever-like
structure, a system with output time delay. Combined
with phase compensation, the method presented could
process variable time delay systems. A DC cancelation
algorithm allows the controller to maintain stability.
A control algorithm is designed based on acceleration

This work was supported by the NSF of China under grant

10825207.

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