Blending of Inputs and Outputs for Modal Velocity Feedback

Dynamical systems like mechanical structures can be effectively damped by applying forces which oppose the velocity measured at the very same location. To apply this principle also to systems with multiple actuators and sensors of different type and at different locations, a novel control approach is presented in this paper. The control approach aims to damp individual modes by a minimum-gain feedback of blended measurement outputs to blended control inputs. To that end, a numerically efficient algorithm is proposed for computing input and output blending vectors which yield the desired isolation of the target mode(s). The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated by increasing the modal damping of an aeroelastic system.