H∞ active control of frequency-varying disturbances in a main engine on the floating raft vibration isolation system

Reducing the vibration of marine power machinery can improve warships' capabilities of concealment and reconnaissance. Being one of the most effective means to reduce mechanical vibrations, the active vibration control technology can overcome the poor effect in low frequency of traditional passive vibration isolation. As the vibrations arising from operation of marine power machinery are actually the frequency-varying disturbances, the H∞ control method is adopted to suppress frequency-varying disturbances. The H∞ control method can solve the stability problems caused by the uncertainty of the model and reshape the frequency response function of the closed loop system. Two-input two-output continuous transfer function models were identified by using the system identification method and are validated in frequency domain of which all values of best fit exceeds 89%. The method of selecting the weighting functions on the mixed sensitivity problem is studied. Besides, the H∞ controller is designed for a multiple input multiple output (MIMO) system to suppress the single-frequency-varying disturbance. The numerical simulation results show that the magnitudes of the error signals are reduced by more than 50%, and the amplitudes of the dominant frequencies are attenuated by more than 10 dB. Finally, the single excitation source dual-channel control experiments are conducted on the floating raft isolation system. The experiment results reveal that the root mean square values of the error signals under control have fallen by more 74% than that without control, and the amplitudes of the error signals in the dominant frequencies are attenuated above 13 dB. The experiment results and the numerical simulation results are basically in line, indicating a good vibration isolation effect.