Active control of a tensegrity plane grid

Tensegrity systems are selfstressed reticulate space structures. As lightweight frames, they are subject to deformation and vibration issues when faced to natural stimulations such as temperature gradients or wind. Classical passive solutions impose to rigidify components or to add damping in the structure using heavy devices. Active systems, mainly developed in space and seismic fields, are controlled using external energy brought by activators. We describe in this paper a mixed geometric and dynamic active control of tensegrity structures using a robust control design technique. An experiment is carried out on a six selfstress states plane tensegrity grid.