Design methods and computational tools for delay-based vibration suppression of mechanical systems

Recently novel techniques for vibration absorption, which involve the use of delay based input shapers and so-called delayed resonators, have been developed and successfully applied to flexible mechatronic systems. In these developments, hand in hand with advances in spectrum based control of time-delay systems, the applicants played an important role, with complementary contributions from the methodological and the application side. The aim of the project is to analyze properties of poles and zeros of multi-input multi-output systems with delays, and to develop optimization based control design techniques, grounded in simultaneously shaping spectra of poles and zeros, and capable to solve co-design problems of absorbers and higher-level controllers (to position a platform or to manipulate a robot’s arm). The requirement for solving co-design problems stems from the property that for future-generation delay based vibration suppression techniques, a separation principle allowing a separate design of absorbers and controllers, is no longer viable, necessitating fundamentally different design tools. This is the case for the concept of non-collocated vibration suppression, which serves as a benchmark to steer the methodological and computational developments in the project, and to validate the results. The applicants, from computer science and mechanical engineering, have already collaborated in the last 15 years, witnessed by several co-publications and a joint doctorate, but the collaboration has always been on an occasional and ad-hoc basis, without direct funding. The proposed project allows them to give the collaboration the highest priority and intensify the joint research, on a novel and challenging topic which fits well with their complementary expertise, thereby laying the foundations for a successful EU application.

Keywords:scientific computing, delay systems, systems theory, mechatronics, vibration control

Disciplines:Automation, feedback control and robotics, Dynamics, vibration and vibration control, Calculus of variations and optimal control, optimisation