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When multiple actuators and sensors are used to control the vibration of a panel, or its sound radiation, they are usually positioned so that they couple into specific modes and are all connected together with a centralized control system. This paper investigates the physical effects of having a regular array of actuator and sensor pairs that are connected only by local feedback loops. An array of 4 x 4 force actuators and velocity sensors is first simulated, for which such a decentralized controller can be shown to be unconditionally stable. Significant reductions in both the kinetic energy of the panel and in its radiated sound power can be obtained for an optimal value of feedback gain, although higher values of feedback gain can induce extra resonances in the system and degrade the performance. A more practical transducer pair, consisting of a piezoelectric actuator and velocity sensor, is also investigated and the simulations suggest that a decentralized controller with this arrangement is also stable over a wide range of feedback gains. The resulting reductions in kinetic energy and sound power are not as great as with the force actuators, due to the extra resonances being more prominent and at lower frequencies, but are still worthwhile. This suggests that an array of independent modular systems, each of which included an actuator, a sensor, and a local feedback control loop, could be a simple and robust method of controlling broadband sound transmission when integrated into a panel.

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This paper presents a theoretical and experimental study of the frequency response function of a matched volume velocity sensor and uniform force actuator for active structural acoustic control. The paper first reviews the design of a volume velocity sensor and uniform force actuator on a panel, using piezoelectric film with quadratic shaping of the electrodes. The frequency response function of a matched volume velocity sensor and uniform force actuator bonded on either sides of a panel is then studied in detail. This analysis shows that below 100 Hz the sensor-actuator response is controlled by the bending vibration of the panel and a good estimate of the volumetric component of the transverse vibration of the panel is achieved. At higher frequencies, however, the sensoractuator response is controlled by the in-plane longitudinal and shear vibration of the panel, which causes the real part of the frequency response function to be not strictly positive and to be characterized by large amplitudes at higher frequencies. These two phenomena are important since they limit the possibility of implementing a stable direct velocity feedback control system using these transducers.

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Some of the compromises inherent in using a passive system to isolate delicate equipment from base vibration can be avoided using fully active skyhook damping. Ideally, a secondary force, which is made proportional to the absolute equipment velocity by a feedback controller, acts only on the equipment and so the response of the system under control, between the secondary force input and the collocated velocity output, i.e., the plant response, is proportional to the driving point mobility of the mounted equipment. The frequency response of the plant is guaranteed to have a positive real part under these ideal conditions, and so the feedback system is unconditionally stable for any positive real feedback gain. In practice, the actuator generating the secondary force must either react off the base structure or an inertial mass. In both of these cases the plant response is no longer guaranteed to be positive real and so the control system may become unstable at high gains. Expressions for the overall plant responses are derived for both of these arrangements, in terms of the dynamic response of the individual parts of the isolation system. When using a soft mount, the stability of the reactive system is found to be surprisingly tolerant of the additional contributions to the plant response from the reactive force. In order for the inertial system to be stable with a high feedback gain, however, the natural frequency of the actuator must be well below the natural frequency of the equipment on the mounts. Experimentally measured plant responses are compared with those predicted from theory for both types of actuator and the performance of practically implemented feedback controllers is discussed.