Control design for smart flexible structures

This paper is concerned with the control design for structures with spatially dis- tributed discrete sensor arrangements. Optimal controllers are derived which considerably increasesthe damping of the structure for a significantly large bandwidth. The control design is formulated as aconstrained optimisation problem and the sequential nature of the system is exploited to simplify thedesign procedure. The number and locations of sensors are determined in an iterative design procedureaimed at meeting a set of design specifications. The proposed technique is applied to an ideal Euler- Bernoulli beam of unity length with free ends. The result shows that high degree of damping can beachieved for a large bandwidth.