Review article

Journal of Intelligent Material Systems

and Structures
23(11) 11811195
Active and semi-active control of The Author(s) 2012
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DOI: 10.1177/1045389X12445029

A review of recent advances jim.sagepub.com

Fabio Casciati1, Jose Rodellar2 and Umut Yildirim1

Abstract
It is internationally recognized that structural control was introduced in civil engineering through a pioneering article by
Yao and through the implementations promoted by Kobori. The concepts of active and semi-active structural control in
civil and infrastructure engineering date back 40 years and much progress has been recorded during these four decades.
Periodically, state-of-the-art manuscripts have been published and technical books were also printed to testify the
maturation of the topic. This article only covers the period from the second semester of 2009 to the first semester of
2011, emphasizing the developments in terms of theoretical, numerical and experimental studies, as well as the use of
control algorithms and devices in actual implementations. It is observed that there are still several operational limitations
to prevent from the expected growth of the applications in standard design. Nevertheless, some innovative concepts
help to foresee future developments within special sectors of applications.

Keywords
active control, control algorithms, intelligent systems, laboratory testing, semi-active control, structural control

Introduction and Magonette, 2001; Flesh et al., 2005; Fujino et al.,

The solutions for mitigating the response of structures
under natural hazards, such as earthquakes and strong
winds, have been moving from passive control systems
to smart and effective active or semi-active systems by
exploring recent advances in microprocessor, sensor
and actuator technologies. While passive systems are
unable to adapt to changes in the structural properties
and to the stochastic nature of the external excitations,
active control systems can adapt to a wide range of
operating conditions and structures. But their input of
mechanical energy into the structural system could
result in significant increases in hardware costs and
reliability issues. Semi-active control systems achieve a
compromise between active and passive control systems
by combining the inherent reliability of passive systems
and the adaptability of active systems without requiring
significant sources of external power. In addition they
are inherently stable.
Over the past four decades, various control algo-
rithms and control devices have been developed, modi-
fied and investigated by various groups of researchers
since the pioneering work by Yao (1972). Periodic con-
ferences greatly helped to disseminate the scientific and
technical developments (Baratta and Rodellar, 1996;
Belyaev and Indeitsev, 2008; Casciati, 2003; Casciati
2010; Housner et al., 1994; Johnson and Smyth, 2007;
Kobori et al., 1999).
While many of these structural control strategies
have been successfully applied, challenges pertaining to
cost, reliance on external power and mechanical intri-
cacy during the life of the structure have delayed their
widespread use. An early review article of active struc-
tural control in civil engineering was prepared by
Soong (1988). The article stated the motivating factors
of active control and the benefits of its use under severe
conditions. The activities in control system design,
algorithm development and some practical considera-
tions were also outlined.
The conceptual basic system architecture of actively
controlled structures was first proposed by Kobori
early in the 1950s. He classified the researches on active
control in theoretical research and application
1
Department of Structural Mechanics, University of Pavia, Pavia, Italy
2
Department of Applied Mathematics III, Universitat Politecnica de
Catalunya (UPC), Barcelona, Spain
Corresponding author:
Umut Yildirim, Department of Structural Mechanics, University of Pavia,
Via Ferrata 1, 27100 Pavia, Italy.
Email: umut.yildirim@unipv.it
1182
development (Kobori, 1996). Several authors worked
together (Housner et al., 1997) to publish a tutorial (or
survey) article to provide a starting point for research-
ers who were wishing to assess the state of the art in
the control of civil engineering structures. The article
provided a link between structural control and other
fields of control theory, pointing out both differences
and similarities. The article provided details of passive
energy dissipation systems, active control systems,
hybrid and semi-active control systems, sensors for
structural control, smart material systems as well as
structural health monitoring and damage detection as
support to structural control.
A detailed literature review of semi-active control
systems was prepared in Symans and Constantinou
(1999). The review specifically focussed on the descrip-
tion of the dynamic behaviour and the distinguishing
features of various semi-active systems, which had been
experimentally tested both at the component level and
within the small-scale structural models. The semi-
active systems that were reviewed include stiffness
control devices, electrorheological dampers, magnetor-
heological (MR) dampers, friction control devices, fluid
viscous dampers, tuned mass dampers (TMDs) and
tuned liquid dampers.
The article by Soong and Spencer (2002) presented a
brief historical outline of the development and an
assessment of the state of the art and state of the prac-
tice of evolving structural control technology. Also,
their advantages and limitations were included in the
context of seismic design and retrofit of civil engineer-
ing structures. A review study for the main classes of
semi-active control devices and their full-scale imple-
mentation to civil infrastructure applications was pre-
sented 1 year later (Spencer and Nagarajaiah, 2003).
Another review (Datta, 2003), mainly focussed on
the application of active control of structures to coun-
teract earthquake excitation, provides theoretical back-
grounds of different active control schemes, parametric
observations on active structural control, limitations
and difficulties of their practical implementation. An
overview on some theoretical and practical issues
involved in the design and implementation of control
algorithms was presented in Rodellar et al. (2008),
including selected references.
More recently, the article by Soong and Cimellaro
(2009) focussed on the integrated design of control/
structural systems. The research opened a gate for new
possibilities in structural forms and configurations. The
main idea was to separate the control law into two parts:
a passive part that was implemented into the physical
system by redesigning it and an active part that repre-
sents the remaining active control law required after the
structure redesign. In other words, the structure can be
redesigned for better controllability in terms of a lighter
structure for a specified performance in view of minimiz-
ing the amount of active control power needed.
Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 23(11)
The developments and advances in semi-active/smart
variable stiffness and adaptive passive systems were pre-
sented in Naragarajaiah (2010). Semi-active or smart
tuned mass dampers (STMDs), adaptive length pendu-
lum (ALP) dampers, adaptive negative stiffness devices
(NSD) and also their driving algorithms were proposed.
In parallel to the evolution of review papers published
in international journals, some books were also prepared
(Casciati et al., 2006; Chu et al., 2005; Rodellar et al.,
1999), initially in the form of contributed chapters orga-
nized by editors. Recent contributions of the new con-
cepts and applications in structural control strategy are
disseminated by Rodellar et al. (1999). From mathemati-
cal calculations to practical issues at the infrastructure
level, several topics are introduced to the readers atten-
tion. In particular, the book chapters ranged from topics
of observability, controllability, model-free approaches,
risk adverse control, semi-active control, spillover, decen-
tralized control, HN tools, stability-based control, fuzzy
controllers, adaptive structures and so on. Significant
issues involved in the integrated implementation of active
control systems are introduced in Chu et al. (2005). Basic
knowledge of how to handle digital data discretized from
analogical measurements, transformation from theoreti-
cal values to practical signals and the effects of quantiza-
tion are introduced. Then, the compatibility between the
control hardware and the software of the integrated sys-
tem is evaluated. Additionally, the issues of discretization
in time, output feedback, sensor inaccuracies, time
delays, measurement noises and real-time measured sig-
nals are considered. The book by Casciati et al. (2006) is
organized into two parts: theoretical contributions and
experimental evaluations. The first part consists of
different kinds of control schemes and strategies. The
second part explains the concepts in terms of implemen-
tation aspects.
This article only covers the developments in the
period from the beginning of 2009 to the early 2011. Its
general outline moves from a review of the progresses
on a theoretical and numerical ground (section
Theoretical issues and numerical simulations). Section
Experimental studies groups few examples of experi-
mental and hybrid testing studies. Section Full-scale
applications discusses the full-scale applications
together with a foreseeing of the expected develop-
ments in structural control. Section Final remarks and
conclusions outlines some concluding remarks.
Theoretical issues and numerical
simulations
Control theory is the base for developing active and
semi-active strategies. Many issues are involved in
designing control laws: model, feedback architecture
(centralized/decentralized), performance objective, con-
trol methodology, stability, robustness in the presence
Casciati et al.
of uncertainties and non-linearities. All of them are
crucial and have to be investigated in the design pro-
cess. Since most of these characteristics are combined
in different ways depending on each control problem,
there is not a single way of organizing a review on con-
trol methods in an area like structural control. This sec-
tion is divided into subsections where the compiled
contributions have significant intersections. Subsection
Control laws and feedback architecture joins articles
where modelling issues and feedback architecture are
particularly relevant. Subsection Soft computing and
adaptive control laws includes mainly soft computing
and adaptive approaches. Typical non-linearities arise
when using smart actuators in semi-active settings,
like in the family of MR dampers. This family has
attracted intensive research in the last few years and is
the subject of subsection Control laws for the MR
device family. Control designs have been sometimes
directly motivated by case studies. Results are often
based on reduced numerical models without experi-
mental support. They offer the scientists and the
designers a common framework for comparing the
achieved ability to manage well-defined problems.
Among the case studies, a special character must be
given to the contributions to the benchmarks launched
across the scientific community. Subsections Case
studies and Benchmark studies discuss a number of
articles within this framework.
Control laws and feedback architecture
This subsection reviews a set of articles whose main
focus is on several issues that have an architectural
nature within a control loop. Thus, some articles deal
with the kind of performance that a system (the struc-
ture) is expected to achieve through a control system.
Concepts such as desired response and pole assignment
are used to design controllers based on performance
specifications. The problem of the time delay in the
control loop (mainly due to the actuation time lags),
which was a subject of big concern for long time in the
structural control research community, is still in the
focus of some of the reviewed articles.
A significant component in a control loop is the
architecture linking the sensors and the actuators.
Different options can be adopted depending on the
number and location of these devices and how the
information signals are connected, particularly for sys-
tems with large physical dimensions. This may be par-
ticularly relevant for large-scale structures like bridges,
buildings and others. Some articles in this subsection
deal with decentralized strategies where the overall sys-
tem is first decomposed into subsystems and local con-
trollers are designed and implemented. The final
purpose is to reduce the transmission and computation
costs within the control loops while increasing the relia-
bility of the control system in case of failures in sensors.
1183
A procedure using a two-stage approach was formu-
lated in Cimellaro et al. (2009a) for the integrated
design of controlled structural systems. As a first step,
an initial structure was chosen and was assumed fixed,
while the controller was designed in order to satisfy a
given performance requirement (e.g. drift, absolute
acceleration, base shear, etc.) of this initial structure.
The dynamic response of the initial structure in this step
is called Ideal Response. As a second step, the struc-
ture and the controller were redesigned cooperatively to
achieve a common goal (the ideal dynamic response of
the first step), while a certain objective function was
optimized. For example, structural redesign can be
accomplished to reduce the amount of active control
power needed to achieve the ideal response. In other
words, the structure was redesigned in view of a better
controllability. Basically, the integrated redesign proce-
dure was formulated for the case of elastic buildings.
The same authors also proposed the integrated design
of structural/control systems in the case of inelastic
structures (Cimellaro et al., 2009b).
The eigenvalues of a linear vibratory system under
state-feedback control in the presence of time delay are
studied using the method of receptances (Ram et al.,
2009). The eigenvalues are separated into two groups,
primary and secondary eigenvalues. The primary eigen-
values are the finite eigenvalues of the system without
time delay. The secondary eigenvalues are the other
eigenvalues emerging from infinity due to the delay.
The analysis is based on Taylor series expansion of the
control that allows approximation of the primary
eigenvalues of the system. This approximation can be
improved to desired accuracy by increasing the order
of the expansion as shown by examples. The theoretical
and practical applications of receptance method for
single-input and multi-input state-feedback partial pole
placement were developed and demonstrated useful for
vibration suppression in structures (Tehrani et al.,
2010). One of the advantages of the receptance method,
over conventional matrix methods such as state-space
control based on a finite element discretization, is that
there is no need to know or to evaluate the structural
matrices, or of the actuator dynamics, which may be
included in the measurement by generalization of the
receptance. Poles are assigned sequentially, the force
distribution vector in each step being selected from the
null space of previously assigned modes to easily excite
the next mode, thereby ensuring that the previously
assigned poles are uncontrollable and remain
unchanged. A good agreement was demonstrated
between the simulated and measured poles and also in
the natural frequencies and damping of the structures.
The problem of noise in measured receptances of
robust pole placement in structural vibration is studied
in Tehrani et al. (2011). The effects of sequential multi-
input state feedback combined with minimization of
the eigenvalue sensitivity are investigated. In a
1184
sequential multi-input state-feedback approach, the
procedure assumes that a different eigenvalue can be
assigned at each step without changing those eigenva-
lues assigned at previous steps. The sequential
approach has the advantage of a characteristic equa-
tion that is linear in the control gains and is shown to
be inherently more robust to measurement noise than
the single-input method.
A dynamic control strategy, based on pole placement
technique, was proposed for application to active or
semi-active control systems installed in buildings
designed against seismic actions (Pnevmatikos and
Gantes, 2010). The general control strategy consists of
the following stages: the monitoring of the incoming
signal, its fast Fourier transform (FFT) or wavelet anal-
ysis for recognition of its dynamic characteristics, the
selection of poles of the integrated controlled system,
the application of the pole placement algorithm for the
calculation of the required actions, and finally, account-
ing for the limitations of the devices to be used, their
action accounting for saturation effects and time delay.
The article by Abdel-Rohman et al. (2010) addressed
the problem of time delay compensation by two meth-
ods. In the first method, the delayed control action was
expressed in terms of the current control action and its
derivatives using a truncated Taylors series. In the sec-
ond method, the delayed control action was expressed
as feedback of the delayed state variables. Both meth-
ods were applied on a linear model derived from the
actual non-linear model.
A technique to verify the stability and accuracy of
adaptive control algorithms affected by time delay is
proposed in Bursi et al. (2010). The adaptive minimal
control synthesis (MCS) algorithm is applied to linear
time-invariant plants while the whole controlled system
state and control equations, discretized by the zero-
order-hold (ZOH) sampling, are non-linear. The two
linearization procedures are obtained by a physical
insight scheme and Taylor series expansion. The effec-
tiveness of the methodology is assessed by both simula-
tions and experimental tests.
A time-delayed decentralized HN controller was
designed and validated using a numerical model of a
five-storey structure in Wang (2011). Simulations were
conducted to illustrate the effects of different feedback
time delays for different decentralized feedback pat-
terns. The performance of the decentralized HN con-
trollers was then compared with the performance of
time-delayed decentralized controllers that were based
on linear quadratic regulator (LQR) optimization cri-
teria. It was shown that with less feedback latency,
decentralized control strategies may achieve similar
performance when compared with centralized ones.
Therefore, decentralized strategies can be more appeal-
ing due to associated lower costs.
An algorithm of modified predictive control (MPC),
which was derived with the partial-state concept of
Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 23(11)
direct output feedback (DOF) to reduce the number of
sensors for real implementation, was given in Yang et
al. (2011). According to the algorithm, the online con-
trol forces were simply generated from the actual out-
put measurements that were multiplied by a prescribed
constant output feedback gain matrix.
Decentralized strategies using the concept of over-
lapping systems have been proposed in control theory
and recently focussed on structural control in Bakule et
al. (2005) and Palacios-Quinonero et al. (2010).
Overlapping means to decompose a large-scale system
into subsystems that share state and control variables.
Using appropriate linear transformations, the overall
system can be represented as a set of decoupled subsys-
tems in such a way that virtual decentralized control-
lers can be designed for such subsystems. Then, these
controllers are transformed back so that they can be
implemented in the real system. The methodology
ensures essential structural properties like controllabil-
ity and observability (Bakule et al., 2001).
In the article by Zimmerman and Lynch (2010), an
agent-based data processing in the wireless structural
health monitoring through the application of market-
based techniques was used in network mode shape esti-
mation. Specifically, following previous wireless sensor
work by the authors, in both decentralized frequency
domain decomposition (DCFDD) and market-based
resource allocation, an algorithm derived from free-
market principles was developed through which an
agent-based wireless sensor network can autonomously
and optimally shift emphasis between improving the
accuracy of its mode shape calculations and reducing
its dependency on any of the physical limitations of the
wireless network, namely, processing time, storage
capacity, wireless bandwidth or power consumption.
In summary, most of the articles discussed above
deal with eigenvalues, poles, time delay, performance,
model decomposition and decentralization. All of them
are essential issues in designing and implementing con-
trollers for systems that have a complex architecture, as
for the systems encountered in structural control. Some
of the above issues are classical in the structural con-
trol literature. Others, like those related to feedback
architecture and decentralization, are more recent in
this context and, in our opinion, have potential to grow
in the near future, particularly when associated to the
new possibilities of wireless sensing and computing.
Soft computing and adaptive control laws
Structures are complex systems that include elements
and devices with a clear non-linear nature. This issue
motivated an increasing interest in the recent years for
developing non-linear control methods. In this context,
the interaction between modelling and control formula-
tion is very important and the mathematical and
computational involvement is a significant problem to
Casciati et al.
tackle. Analytical models are, in principle, the ideal
framework to describe accurately the dynamic beha-
viour and to develop appropriate mathematical control
laws to ensure stability and performance requirements
with robustness capability against discrepancies
between the models and the real non-linear behaviour.
Since accurate models are not always available and are
difficult to validate experimentally, there is a trend to
use simplified models based on semi-physical approxi-
mations or direct inputoutput relationships experi-
mentally obtained for control purposes.
The articles included in this subsection use tools such
as wavelets, neural networks, fuzzy logics and soft com-
puting. They have in common the objective of control-
ling systems by combining analytically based control
methods with model-free tools for uncertain non-linear
and time-varying components.
A wavelet-based adaptive time-varying controller
was investigated by Basu and Nagarajaiah (2008). The
modified LQR algorithm of the controller uses the
information derived from the wavelet analysis of the
response in real time, in order to obtain the local
energy distribution over frequency bands. This struc-
tural system information is used to adaptively design
the controller by updating the weighting matrices to be
contributed to the response energy and the control
effort. The optimal LQR control problem is solved for
each time interval with updated weighting matrices,
through the Riccati equation, leading to time-varying
gain matrices in real time.
A wavelet neuro-controller capable of self-
adaptation and self-organization was also proposed in
Laflamme et al. (2011) for uncertain systems controlled
by semi-active devices, regarded as ideal candidates for
large-scale civil structures. The controller was built on
neural networks. The adaptive rules of the neuro-
controller were derived using Lyapunov stability to
ensure robustness.
The performance of an adaptive fuzzy sliding mode
control (AFSMC) for highway bridges was investigated
in Ning et al. (2009). This approach combines the
advantages of sliding mode control (SMC), adaptive
control and fuzzy control without compromising the
stability or robustness. Switching-type control law of
the conventional SMC and uncertainty part of the
equivalent control was approximated by a fuzzy con-
troller to attenuate the chattering phenomenon of SMC
and harmful effects caused by uncertainties. In order to
reduce the complexity of the fuzzy rule bases, an adap-
tive law based on Lyapunov function and Barbalats
lemma was designed. AFSMC is also integrated with a
clipped-optimal (CO) strategy to illustrate its efficiency
for semi-active MR dampers.
A non-linear robust control approach to address the
non-linear control problem of civil structures under
strong earthquake excitation was presented in Li et al.
(2011). The overall system was decomposed into several
1185
subsystems, each adopting a corresponding control
algorithm. During the control design process, a direct
adaptive fuzzy control design scheme was developed to
deal with the non-linear subsystem. The stability of the
closed-loop system was proven by Lyapunovs direct
methods. Moreover, HN performance was achieved
through a subsystem with the proposed controller.
An adaptive control method was proposed in Bitaraf
et al. (2010) with the focus on damage mitigation. The
purpose was to force the damaged structure to behave
like the undamaged structure that has an acceptable
performance. The observability of the system shows
that the internal states of the system can be inferred by
the knowledge of its external outputs. The controllabil-
ity and observability of the system with the governing
equations were checked.
An inverse Lyapunov method in a bang-bang type
semi-active control for civil structures was used in
Hiramoto et al. (2010). In the conventional Lyapunov-
based semi-active control, the Lyapunov function is first
determined; mostly, it is defined as the sum of the
kinetic and potential energies at every instant, and the
bang-bang type control is derived so that the dissipation
rate of the defined Lyapunov function (the total energy)
is maximized. In this specific article, conversely, the
bang-bang type control is first introduced, based on an
unspecified Lyapunov function. Then, the Lyapunov
function was searched over a defined parameter space
so that the performance index on vibration control was
optimized. The Lyapunov function was parameterized
as the weighted sum of the following indices: the sum of
the kinetic and the potential energies, the sum of the
squared inter-storey drift, the squared modal displace-
ment and velocity of lower modes of vibration. Under
the proposed parameterization, the parameters in the
Lyapunov function were optimized with genetic algo-
rithms to minimize the quantitative performance indices
on vibration suppression.
The combination of complementary techniques is, in
general, an interesting way of addressing complex prob-
lems. The above articles combine analytical methods,
like Lyapunov stability, SMC and HN, with soft tools
trying to exploit benefits from both sides. While the
analytical methods provide a solid mathematical back-
ground for a class of models within given assumptions
and working conditions, model-free tools can help in
supplying practical rules for time-varying environments
that may be difficult to model. The reviewed articles
are some examples in structural control.
Control laws for the MR device family
This subsection deals with a class of actuators that con-
tain MR fluids. After application of a magnetic field,
the fluid changes from liquid to semi-solid state in few
milliseconds. Thus, although they are really dampers
that supply dissipative (not active) forces only, they can
1186
operate semi-actively under a feedback control that is
designed to manipulate either a voltage or an electric
current. MR dampers have been received a lot of atten-
tion in the last years and can be easily acquired on the
market nowadays.
A key aspect in designing and implementing a con-
trol system through this class of semi-active devices is
that, while the structure behaviour is effectively con-
trolled by the force supplied by the device, the final
feedback control signal is the voltage (or current) that
has to be appropriately derived to generate the desired
force. The relation between input voltage and output
force at the MR damper is very difficult to model accu-
rately and, if available, a sophisticated model may be
impossible to handle in a manageable form for real-time
actuation. Then, most of the proposed control strate-
gies modify the voltage through onoff rules without
the use of a model. In many cases, these rules consist in
adjusting the voltage in such a way that the actual force
supplied by the MR damper tracks a desired force in
the best possible way under the restriction of the purely
dissipative capacity of the device. This desired force is
usually calculated by means of an active feedback con-
trol law designed to achieve a control objective on the
structure. This overall strategy has been popularized as
clipped control in the literature. Other bang-bang
model-free voltage adjustments have been proposed in
terms of minimizing Lyapunov energy functions. A
recent family of methods considers the tracking of
desired active control forces but through the inversion
of a simplified model of the voltageforce relation.
Altogether, the combination of practical potential
and big challenges for control design and implementa-
tion has motivated an intensive research on vibration
control using MR devices. Perhaps the largest subset of
papers in the last 2 years covered by this review is
related to MR devices.
Du and Zhang (2009) presented a model-based fuzzy
control algorithm for non-linear building-MR damper
system. First, the MR damper model was obtained as a
fuzzy model with TakagiSugeno (T-S) fuzzy modelling
technique. Identifying the T-S fuzzy model from
numerical inputoutput data includes two steps: the
structure identification and the parameter estimation.
Gaussian membership functions have been used in
identifying the T-S fuzzy model from inputoutput
data. The controller synthesis of the T-S fuzzy system
is based on a common quadratic Lyapunov function
because the problem can be efficiently solved by linear
matrix inequality (LMI) techniques. Then, this fuzzy
MR damper model was integrated with the structural
system model. Finally, a generalized H2 or energy-to-
peak control algorithm, which aims to reduce the
control output peak value under energy-bounded dis-
turbance, was applied to the fuzzy model. The optimal
fuzzy controller theoretically guarantees the closed-
loop system stability and the closed-loop performance.
Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 23(11)
A different technique, the so-called quantitative
feedback theory (QFT), was used in Zapateiro et al.
(2009a) in a structure equipped with an MR damper.
In this scheme, the controller is designed in the fre-
quency domain and the natural frequencies of the
structure can be directly accounted for in the process.
Though the QFT methodology was originally con-
ceived for linear time-invariant systems, a new metho-
dology was proposed to characterize the non-linear
hysteretic behaviour of the MR damper through the
uncertainty template in the Nichols chart. The resulting
controller performance was evaluated in a real-time
hybrid testing (RTHT) experiment.
Always with reference to MR dampers, a semi-active
controller based on the backstepping technique was
proposed in Zapateiro et al. (2009b). The backstepping
control design consists in selecting appropriate func-
tions of the state variables as pseudo control inputs for
lower dimension subsystems of the overall system. The
reader is referred to Ali and Ramaswamy (2009a) as
well as to earlier studies such as Pozo et al. (2006) and
Zhou et al. (2006). Each backstepping stage is a new
pseudo control design in terms of the preceding stages.
The final result is a feedback design for the true control
input, which achieves the original design objective by
virtue of a final Lyapunov function formed by sum-
ming up the Lyapunov functions associated with each
individual design stage.
A non-clipped semi-active stochastic optimal control
strategy for non-linear structural systems with MR
dampers was presented in Ying et al. (2009). It was
developed and based on the stochastic averaging
method and stochastic dynamical programming princi-
ple. The control force of an MR damper was separated
into its passive and semi-active parts. The passive con-
trol force components, coupled in the structural mode
space, were incorporated in the drift coefficients by
directly using the stochastic averaging method. Then,
the stochastic dynamical programming principle was
applied to establish a dynamical programming equa-
tion, from which a semi-active optimal control law,
implementable by the MR damper was determined.
An integrated relative displacement sensor (IRDS)
technology is implemented to MR dampers based on
electromagnetic induction and the principle of an inte-
grated relative displacement self-sensing MR damper
(IRDSMRD) based on the IRDS technology were
modelled and designed with finite element method
(FEM) in Wang and Wang (2009). The IRDSMRD
consists of an exciting coil wound on the piston and an
induction coil wound on the non-magnetic cylinder.
The coil wound on the piston acts as the exciting coil
for both the MR damper to adapt the yield stress of
the MR fluid and the IRDS simultaneously and the coil
evenly wound on the cylinder acts as the induction coil
of the IRDS. The exciting coil is fed by the harmonic
voltage signal on a direct current (DC). Changing the
Casciati et al.
DC current alters the yield stress of the MR fluid in the
fluid gap to provide a controllable damping force. The
harmonic voltage signal with the same frequency will
be induced in the induction coil wound on the cylinder
by the harmonic magnetic field along the primary flux
path. When the piston moves in and out of the cylin-
der, the number of the active turns of the induction coil
in the primary flux path correspondingly increases or
decreases. In this way, demodulating the induced vol-
tage from the induction coil, the relative displacement
between the piston and the cylinder of the MR damper
can be accessed and used to achieve the self-sensing
integrated relative displacement.
In Bahar et al. (2010a), a semi-active control was
proposed based on a new inverse model of MR dam-
pers (Bahar et al., 2010b). The model relies on an exten-
sion of the BoucWen description of the inputoutput
hysteretic behaviour (Ikhouane et al., 2007). The con-
trol strategy has a hierarchical structure to allow decen-
tralized control of a set of MR dampers in base-isolated
structures.
The article by Kim et al. (2010) investigated the
behaviour of a seismically excited benchmark building
employing MR dampers operated by a model-based
fuzzy logic controller (MBFLC) formulated in terms of
LMIs. The MBFLC system was developed through
integration of a set of Lyapunov controllers, Kalman
filters, and semi-active converters with the fuzzy inter-
polation method. A set of multi-input multi-output
(MIMO) autoregressive exogenous (ARX) input mod-
els was used for the design of the set of Lyapunov con-
trollers that were formulated in terms of LMIs.
Four different semi-active control algorithms (CO,
Lyapunov stability theory (LYAP), maximum energy
dissipation algorithm (MEDA) and cost function-based
semi-active neuro-control (SNC) algorithm) are consid-
ered in Lee et al. (2010). CO control strategy is based
on the acceleration feedback for controlling an MR
damper. As the force generated in the MR damper
depends on the local responses of the structural system,
the desired optimal control force cannot always be pro-
duced by the device. Only the control voltage can be
directly controlled to increase or decrease the force pro-
duced by the device. According to LYAP, if the rate of
change of the Lyapunov function is negative semi-
definite, the origin is stable. Therefore, a LYAP deter-
mines the control force in order to induce the rate of
change of the Lyapunov function to be a negative value
(if possible). The MEDA was presented as a variation of
the decentralized bang-bang approach. This algorithm
considers a Lyapunov function that represents the rela-
tive vibratory energy in the structure without including
the velocity of the ground in the kinetic energy term.
An SNC algorithm, which consists of a clipped algo-
rithm in addition to the neuro-controller, was also pro-
posed. The neuro-controller first calculates the optimal
control force. To induce the MR damper to generate the
1187
desired optimal control force, a clipped algorithm was
then employed to select the command voltage to the
MR damper. Since the authors also carried out experi-
mental tests, this article is considered again in section
Experimental studies, where some conclusions on the
comparison are also illustrated. More comparative stud-
ies of different control laws are available like Shook et
al. (2007) and Ali and Ramaswamy (2009c, 2009d).
Two voltage control laws were introduced in Purohit
and Chandiramani (2011): inverse quadratic voltage
law (IQVL) and inverse onoff voltage law (IOOVL),
both based on the MR constraint filter. These laws were
implemented in addition to the existing clipped voltage
law (CVL). The results for controlled response of the
building were obtained in terms of peak and root mean
square (RMS) values of response quantities (inter-
storey drift, displacement, acceleration). They were
compared with existing results obtained via a linear
quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control using CVL and via
a passive-on control with constant (saturation) voltage
applied. A reduction in the maximum peak inter-storey
drift, maximum RMS inter-storey drift and perfor-
mance index was obtained when using optimal static
output feedback (OSOF)IOOVL/CVL control while
comparing with passive-on control.
A semi-active control strategy is presented in
Aguirre et al. (2011) based on the idea of clipping the
voltage signal but using a simpler proportional and
integral (PI) control. The two PI parameters are calcu-
lated so that the controller guarantees stability, minimi-
zation of the closed-loop response and robustness
against modelling errors. Simulation results shows that
this simple strategy can effectively improve the struc-
tural responses and achieve performance index compa-
rable to that of more complex algorithms.
By summarizing, a sample of the class of more
recent studies on control using MR dampers has been
provided. Most significant effort is paid in developing
control strategies to be implementable in a semi-active
scheme. The mathematical characterization of the
semi-active actuators is one of the main components in
the control formulation, since they are non-linear
devices that cannot apply purely active forces. A vari-
ety of methods still rely on the concept of clipped con-
trol, where an active control is first designed and then
approximated by a damper-like restoring force imple-
mentable by a semi-active actuator. Other methods
combine semi-physical models, like the BoucWen or
related models, with a non-linear control method. A
recent review on the use of this model in this context is
available in Ismail et al. (2009). In any case, the robust-
ness against the uncertainties in the whole control loop
is a matter addressed in most of the articles. Most of
the works address the control with a single device.
Extensions to strategies to manage sets of several
devices are interesting and can motivate further studies
(Bahar et al., 2010a).
1188
Case studies
The contributions summarized below use control meth-
ods that could be included in previous subsections, but
we have preferred to collect them in a separate subsec-
tion since the control designs are driven by specific
problems involving specific structures and actuators,
like wind turbines, TMD and active mass damper
(AMD) and semi-active hydraulic devices.
A semi-active control device was considered for
decreasing the non-linear vibration of shallow cables in
Casciati and Ubertini (2008). The control device was
represented by a TMD with a variable out-of-plane
inclination. A simple control algorithm was regulated
for the out-of-plane inclination of the TMD. The effec-
tiveness of the proposed control strategy was validated
by means of numerical simulations, through an FEM
formulation and a reduced discrete control-oriented
analytical model. The equations of motion derived
from the classical updated Lagrangian approach in
both the FEM model and the reduced Galerkin model
are taken into account in order to get a high numerical
accuracy in analytical model.
A fuzzy logic-based control algorithm to control a
non-linear high-rise structure under earthquake excita-
tion using an AMD device was developed in Li et al.
(2011). For the control of a high-rise building under
earthquake excitation, due to the complexity of the
vibration modes, many inputs were needed for the
fuzzy controller, and this may cause the explosion of
fuzzy rules. To solve this problem, generalized inputs
for fuzzy control were proposed by considering all the
states of the structure based on a quadratic perfor-
mance index. For high-rise buildings, the innovative
strategy of using both AMD and inter-storey dampers
was developed to control the non-linear vibration of
the structure to avoid excessive inter-storey drifts that
may be caused by the AMD.
A simulation model for the 10-storey shear building
structure equipped with displacement-dependent semi-
active hydraulic damper (DSHD) was investigated in
Go et al. (2010) for the purpose of practical design.
Based on the linear analysis approach, the DSHD was
assumed with two components: a linear spring and a
linear viscous damper. The DSHD was then perform-
ing as an equivalent element with linear mechanism.
The concept of equivalent stiffness and damping ratio
for the simulation were validated by the example of a
10-storey building subject to the El Centro earthquake.
The semi-active control system that is developed for
wind turbine blades and its tower in the study of
Arrigan et al. (2011) employs a frequency-tracking
algorithm based on the short-time Fourier transform
(STFT) technique. It allows local frequencies of non-
stationary signals to be identified in the response of the
system that may only exist during a short period of
time. The STFT algorithm splits up the signal into
Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 23(11)
shorter time segments and an FFT is performed on
each segment to identify the dominant frequencies pres-
ent in the system during the time period considered and
it is used to continually tune the dampers to the domi-
nant frequencies of the system.
Benchmark studies
Several benchmarks were launched within the structural
control community targeted to aseismic buildings, tall
buildings under wind excitation, cable-stayed bridges
and eventually base-isolated bridges. The results were
usually collected in special issues of journals (Agrawal
et al., 2009a, 2009b; Naragarajaiah et al., 2008). Since
this review article is limited to the last 2 years only, a
short report on base-isolated bridges seems to be ade-
quate, the previous benchmarks being older.
A sample control design using passive, active and
semi-active control systems for the newly developed
benchmark highway bridge model was presented in Tan
and Agrawal (2009). An H2/LQG control algorithm
was selected for the active case and a CO control algo-
rithm was chosen for the semi-active case by assuming
that the system remains linear since the initially elastic
model of the benchmark highway bridge was used to
derive a reduced-order controller design model. This
reduced-order model was obtained by the eigenmode
reduction method. It was a modal decoupling approach
in which the original state equation was transformed
into a diagonal canonical form using the modal coordi-
nates as the states.
A control scheme was introduced in Pujol et al.
(2009) based on using a passive static hyperbolic damp-
ing function. The main feature of the proposed control-
ler was its simplicity in the formulation, design and
implementation, depending only on the velocity. This
expression can be also seen as an active control law,
which can be implemented by an appropriate actuator
using only local velocity feedback. The adopted model
of the MR damper is based on the BoucWen hystere-
tic model. It was also proved that the smooth com-
mand voltage function was able to produce a force
velocity relationship in a modelled MR damper instead
of a clipped control or bang-bang Lyapunov design
(Pozo et al., 2010).
A two-stage controller to monitor the MR voltage
based on the feedback from the system was proposed
in Ali and Ramaswamy (2009b). The primary control-
ler should provide an optimal force for the system in
the state-feedback form with a control algorithm such
as LQR, LQG, pole placement or any other. The goal
then was to supply the required voltage to the MR
damper so that it produces that force. When the rela-
tion between the voltage command signals and the
damper forces are linear, it can be explicitly established.
However, if it is non-linear (as in the case of MR dam-
pers), a direct monitoring of the MR damper voltage,
Casciati et al.
as based on system responses, is required. In this arti-
cle, a dynamic inversion (DI)based controller was
developed to track the force generated by the primary
controller. The tracking error was minimized in an L2
norm sense for a set of controllers, and the voltage sup-
ply to each damper, which is required to minimize the
tracking error, was optimized. In the process, the DI
procedure accounted for the suppliedcommanded vol-
tage dynamics and provided a state-dependent explicit
form of the voltage supply to each MR damper.
The benchmark studies have shown to be useful. The
models were built to represent large structures with
good fidelity and freely available for the research com-
munity. They were an opportunity to test and compare
passive, active and semi-active control schemes for large
structures. Indeed, computational schemes should not
substitute experimental studies, but it is worth to keep
and even extend their use in several other problems.
They can complement the real implementations and
even allow testing, in a feasible, manageable and repeti-
tive way, some issues that would difficult to character-
ize and measure in reality.
Some prospective remarks
When comparing the present trend of development
with that of one decade ago, one can say that problems
addressed to the system management (as collocated
versus non-collocated, centralized versus decentralized,
linear versus non-linear, stable versus robust control)
are today replaced by problems addressed to the opti-
mal management of a single device. This trend has been
mainly motivated by one of the bottle necks of active
control: the availability of implementable feasible
actuators. The authors guess that besides the actuation
issue, the long-term target seems to be the implementa-
tion of embedded intelligence, which is promoted by
the availability of distributed microcontrollers able to
receive the sensors feedback and to elaborate locally
the counteraction(s). It can be foreseen that the main
topics (systems oriented) of 10 years ago will be soon
back again.
Experimental studies
Control theory is the base for developing active and
semi-active strategies, but the experimental validation
is a must. Indeed, the control strategy relies on having
a model of the system and on the assumption that feed-
back information is available with some degree of pre-
cision. The overall feedback control loop is highly
sensitive to modelling errors, particularly within semi-
active schemes as discussed previously, and to signal
noises and other information constraints. Laboratory
environments and scaled specimens are the first step
towards the promotion of an idea to an exploitable
scheme. One expects that any new idea in structural
1189
control be first validated on a numerical model and fur-
ther followed by experimental testing.
This is the case of Lee et al. (2010), mentioned in the
previous section, where authors investigated experi-
mentally the effectiveness of some semi-active control
algorithms based on MR dampers for the seismic pro-
tection of a full-scale five-storey steel frame building
structure. The frame was excited by the external excita-
tion produced by a linear active mass driver (AMD)
and controlled by several semi-active control algo-
rithms, such as the CO control, the LYAP, the MEDA
and the SNC algorithm. Under the experimental results
of four historical and one filtered artificial earthquakes,
the LYAP and SNC algorithms were shown to be
appropriate in reducing the accelerations of the struc-
tural system. The passive optimal case and MEDA
showed excellent performance in reducing the first floor
displacement. The CO shows good performance in
reducing both displacements and accelerations.
As for the case discussed above, most of the experi-
mental studies in the period reported in this article deal
with MR dampers in structural applications. The reader
can find more details in the book chapter dedicated to a
base-isolated building hybrid experiment with MR
dampers, which is referred to as Ali and Ramaswamy
(2010).
In recent years, hybrid testing schemes have been
adopted to evaluate structural controllers. They com-
bine, in a closed loop, physical devices and instrumen-
tation with significant structural elements simulated
numerically. Two recent works are discussed below,
which use such kind of testing to perform experiments
with the MR dampers.
The seismic performance of a building structure
equipped with an MR device was presented in Park et
al. (2010) using the real-time hybrid testing method
(RT-HYTEM). First, the force required to drive the
displacement of the storey, at which the MR damper
was located, was measured from the load cell attached
to a universal testing machine (UTM). The measured
force was then returned to a control computer to calcu-
late the response of the numerically simulated struc-
ture. Finally, the experimental structure was excited by
the UTM with the calculated response of the numerical
structure. The RT-HYTEM implemented in this study
was validated by comparing the RTHT results
(obtained by application of sinusoidal and earthquake
excitations) with the corresponding analytical results
obtained using the BoucWen model to compute the
control force of the MR damper from input current:
they were in good agreement.
Also, Zapateiro et al. (2010) carried out experiments
in a RTHT configuration. Numerical simulations and
experiments on small-scale specimens motivated the
feasibility of implementing a backstepping control law
in larger systems. The test consisted of the following
steps: (a) a computer that simulates the structure to be
1190
controlled and generates the commanding signals (dis-
placements and control signals); (b) a small-scale MR
damper driven by a hydraulic actuator, which in turn is
controlled by a servo-hydraulic controller; (c) a digital
signal processor, with its analogue-to-digital (A/D) and
digital-to-analogue (D/A) hardware. The available sen-
sors included a linear variable displacement transformer
(LVDT) for displacement measurements and a load cell
for measuring the MR damper force. The damper was
subjected to sinusoidal and random displacements and
varying voltages. The MR damper was driven by a
hydraulic actuator to impose a displacement from the
computer running the simulation. The measured piston
displacement during the execution of an experiment
showed a good match between the desired and mea-
sured displacement. In order to see the performance of
the system model, simulations were run to compare
with the experimental response. The MR damper piston
displacement measured during an experiment was com-
pared with that obtained by the model of the overall
system. To make this comparison, the El Centro seismic
motion record and the MR damper voltage were taken
as inputs to the RTHT system. The results showed the
good accuracy of the system model.
Two experimental studies are described involving
shape memory alloys (SMAs) as actuators. The combi-
nation of a control law and a strategy to manage the
particular nature of this material is required to produce
an effective control system.
The effectiveness of a control policy in mitigating
the linear and non-linear multimodal cable vibrations
was investigated by means of a numerical analysis and
a campaign of laboratory tests (Faravelli et al., 2010,
2011b). The proposed control method was a hybrid
solution combining wrapped SMA austenitic wires and
an open-loop actuation. By operating in this way, a
robust and economical control strategy was achieved.
It overcomes the damper/actuator localization and the
state-tracking difficulties that significantly impair the
overall control effectiveness of most of the control solu-
tions already investigated in the literature.
A control system actuated by SMA tendons was pro-
posed in Suzuki and Kagawa (2010). The control strat-
egy was designed through a linear approximation of the
non-linear relationship between the applied voltage to
the SMA actuator and the contraction force resulting
from the shape memory effect. An HN control law of
the beamactuator system, which includes the uncer-
tainty of the actuator characteristics, was installed into
the control system. The calculated and the experimental
results agreed satisfactorily.
Interesting experimental studies have been recently
reported where passive and semi-active devices were
proposed to reduce human-induced vibrations in floors
or footbridges. Active vibration control (AVC) via
inertial actuators was experimentally tested in Daz
and Reynolds (2010a, 2010b). The AVC system was
Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 23(11)
assessed in simulation and implemented in office floor
that is already in service. Vibration reductions have
achieved in approximately 60% for walking tests and
over 90% for daily vibration monitoring. Another effi-
ciency of control system for flexible stress-ribbon foot-
bridge is evaluated in terms of the reduction of the
structural response when the footbridge is excited by
several types of pedestrian loads in Moutinho et al.
(2011).
In summary, experimental studies are a necessary
step towards the practical use of structural control
studies and they will continue. Presumably, hybrid test-
ing experiments should be developed further since they
are promising cost-effective schemes somehow between
numerical and purely real-time implementations.
Particularly they are attractive to test real control
devices without having the real structure, which is
numerically simulated. Another aspect to expect in
future experimental works is the incorporation of any
sort of embedded wireless technology as emphasized at
the end of the previous section, but mainly in moving
from the standard analogue electronics to the current
digital format (Casciati and Chen, 2011). It is worth
noticing that wireless structural monitoring does not
require a real-time data transmission, whereas struc-
tural control does it.
Full-scale applications
The practical application of AVC and semi-AVC on
buildings and bridges around the world is not often
explicitly publicized. In several cases, the structure is
built without any supplementary control device, which
is added later to mask some detected poor performance.
The studies associated to the famous Millennium
Bridge in London are a key example in this area, where
passive TMDs and viscous dampers were installed.
Full-scale implementation in Japan
By contrast, in Japan, there was the wish to open a mar-
ket and the few realized applications (there are approxi-
mately 72 active and semi-active control systems in
Japan which were installed since 1989) are monitored.
A deep discussion of these actual observation records in
that country is reported in Ikeda (2009).
The largest earthquake that semi-active control sys-
tems have experienced, before the terrible event of
2011, was the Niigata-ken Chuetsu-oki Earthquake
which occurred on 16 July 2007. In a 31-storey build-
ing, the maximum acceleration on the top floor was
99.6 cm/s2, the maximum force of the semi-active dam-
per installed in the fifth storey was 640 kN and the
maximum stroke was 5.2 mm. Their limitations are
1500 kN for the control force and 60 mm for the
stroke. On 23 October 2004, the same building experi-
enced the Niigata-ken Chuetsu Earthquake. But the
Casciati et al.
responses of the semi-active controllerstructural sys-
tem were smaller than those of the 2007 earthquake.
Based on an identification process using an ARX
model, the equivalent damping ratio in the lowest con-
trolled mode was identified as about 7% under these
earthquakes and their aftershocks. The damping ratio
without semi-active control was evaluated as 1% by
the random decrement (RD) technique applied to wind
observation.
To confirm the control effectiveness, observed
responses of both the structure and the control system
have to be analysed appropriately. A harmonically
forced vibration test was first applied to a 10-storey
office building with an AMD system, the Kyobashi
Seiwa Building. Two AMDs were placed on the 11th
floor (roof floor). Two vibrators were placed at oppo-
site locations in the longitudinal direction on the 10th
floor. The vibrators excited the structure in the trans-
verse direction with the same phase harmonic loadings
and in the rotational direction with the opposite phase
harmonic loadings. The controlled displacement was
compared with the uncontrolled one on the 10th floor.
The same phase harmonic excitation generated the low-
est vibration mode in the transverse direction, and the
natural frequency was 1.065 Hz. The opposite phase
excitation test generated the lowest mode in the tor-
sional direction, and the frequency was 1.85 Hz. The
control effectiveness was very high in both vibration
modes in terms of structural response. Another para-
meter for control effectiveness is confirmed by damping
ratios in the resonance vibration modes of the structure
by free vibration tests.
When a typhoon excited the Kyobashi Center
Building on August 1990, the controlled and uncon-
trolled responses were recorded alternately every 30
min. Before verification, the power spectra of the wind
velocity, its direction and the acceleration amplitude on
the 11th floor were analysed each 10 min to confirm
the comparison possibility. The controlled acceleration
on the 11th floor was mostly within 2.0 cm/s2, while
the uncontrolled acceleration discontinuously exceeded
6.0 cm/s2 with beating. Thus, the AMD system reduced
the maximum acceleration on the 11th floor to about
one-third of the uncontrolled value. It was also con-
firmed that the AMD system eliminated the resonance
peak at the first natural frequency of 1.07 Hz in the
transverse direction.
Full-scale implementations in China
The main full-scale implementation of active control
outside Japan was realized in China: the Nanjing televi-
sion tower was equipped by an AMD prototype rea-
lized in a joint project with the University of New York
at Buffalo. But the device is no longer working at the
moment. Nevertheless, several long-span bridges were
recently realized and most of them showed some
1191
performance limitation which suggested the adoption
of semi-active devices.
The negative stiffness characteristics realized by
semi-active MR damping systems are demonstrated
through an in situ field test of a stay cable in the
Binzhou Yellow River Highway Bridge in Ou and Li
(2010). The stay cable with a length of 219.41 m, ten-
sion of 726,000 kN, weight of 18,850 kg, mass per unit
length of 95.089 kg/m and damping coefficient per unit
length of 0.71 Ns/m2 is employed in this study. An exci-
ter is used to generate a harmonic excitation input to
the cable, and then the free vibration of the cable with/
without semi-active control is recorded. An LQG-based
control algorithm is used to determine an active control
force, which is proposed for the MR damper in the
field test. The results indicate that a larger damping
can be realized using semi-active control than using
passive control. The semi-active damping system can
generate the control force with the characteristics of
damping and negative stiffness and can replace the
active control system. By contrast, any passive linear
viscous dampers cannot generate the control force with
negative stiffness.
The same research team (Li et al., 2011) investigated
the seismic behaviour of a cable-stayed bridge incor-
porating negative stiffness dampers (may be active or
semi-active dampers, simulated by pseudo-viscoelastic
(P-VE) dampers) between the tower and the deck. The
reduction in the seismic response of the cable-stayed
bridge was investigated. The results indicate that the
seismic performance of the cable-stayed bridge and the
damping ratio of the bridge achieve their maximum
values when the damper stiffness is optimum.
Operational limitations for viable practical usage
As said, most of the full-scale applications outside
Japan are in bridges that, designed without any control
system, showed some weakness during the first-year
monitoring. The main environment hazard comes here
from the wind action, but controlled solutions have
then to be verified for the other specific actions as traf-
fic and seismic events.
A question may come out spontaneously to the
reader: why such a massive research effort, as the one
in the area of structural control, gave rise to a so mod-
est number of full-scale applications? The answer could
span from a drastic because structural control is not
viable in civil and infrastructure engineering to a more
promising because there are operational limitations
which have still to be solved. The authors thought is
closer to the second proposition.
To support it, it is suitable to summarize what actu-
ally occurred in the area of passive control (base isola-
tion and energy dissipation). When the designer
submits the design of a new structural system to the
owner, cost and reliability are the two competitive
1192
parameters. Thus, the designer is allowed to introduce
extra costs, provided that this reduces other costs of
different nature and/or increase the global reliability.
This is true provided that the structural code allows the
exploitation of passive control solutions, and this is so
now in many countries.
When extrapolating to non-passive solutions, most
of the codes state that the structural system must be
able to survive even in the occurrence that the control
system fails. Under these conditions, the control
devices have just to be accounted as extra costs. The
owner could accept these extra costs for promoting
innovation, but the solution is out from strict market
reasoning.
Future directions
It should be noticed that the term extra costs is made
of two addenda: initial costs and maintenance costs.
The latter item in the passive control case could require
a replacement of the devices every 5 or 10 years, and
this period is sometimes regarded as too short when
compared with the system lifetime. Semi-active and
active control may require maintenance plans with
shorter schedules, like for instance, biannual mainte-
nance plans. Nevertheless, one cannot conclude that
active control is not viable at all: its viability requires a
change of mind on the maintenance problem in the eco-
nomical world associated with civil and infrastructure
engineering. Even some sort of continuous mainte-
nance can be envisioned where fault detection systems
can be implemented along with the feedback control
systems.
The innovating thought of Professor Takuji Kobori
(Casciati and Al-Saleh, 2008; Casciati et al., 2009;
Kobori, 2003) in the area of structural control already
emphasized the incompatibility of the structural control
dynamic issues with the static conception of conven-
tional building due to the different maintenance time
scales.
A kind of innovative building with a dynamic con-
ception was recently introduced by Fisher (2008, 2010)
and Faravelli et al. (2011a). The movement in the rotat-
ing towers generates energy but also has an aesthetic
character. The maintenance time scale is now consistent
with structural control demand and, hence, the building
is a good candidate to be equipped with structural con-
trol solutions.
A further appealing application comes from the cur-
rent research efforts at National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) (Sherwood et al., 2010). The
exploitation of the space is demanded to androids,
which are supposed to build residences on the Moon,
for instance. These residences will be actually machines
hosting machines and the structural control issues
are supposed to drive their design, construction and
management.
Journal of Intelligent Material Systems and Structures 23(11)
Final remarks and conclusions
In the attempt to send a positive message, the previous
sections clearly state that structural control in Civil and
Infrastructure Engineering is alive at a theoretical level
and that experimental campaigns were carried out or
are in progress. The drawback is that the basic princi-
ples of structural control do not find easy acceptation
in the professional implementations. A research goal,
therefore, should be to make the implementation and
maintenance easier and easier: this applies to the model
of the control loop, the control strategy, the control
methodology and the feedback information constraints
and its digital implementation. Maintenance and the
lack of viable actuation devices remain the main issue
towards successful applications.
Acknowledgment
The authors appreciated the constructive comments of the
anonymous reviewers, which have helped to improve the
paper.
Funding
This work was supported by the Athenaeum Research Funds
of the University of Pavia. The Marie-Curie EU project
SMARTEN supported the activity of the third author (U.Y.)
at the University of Pavia.
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