Self-Sensing Active Magnetic Dampers for Vibration Control

The aim of this paper is to investigate the potential of a self-sensing strategy in the case of an electromagnetic damper for the vibration control of flexible structures and rotors. The study has been performed in the case of a single degree of freedom mechanical oscillator actuated by a couple of electromagnets. The self-sensing system is based on a Luenberger observer. Two sets of parameters have been used: nominal ones (based on simplifications on the actuator model) and identified ones. In the latter case, the parameters of the electromechanical model used in the observer are identified starting from the open-loop system response. The observed states are used to close a state-feedback loop with the objective of increasing the damping of the system. The results show that the damping performance are good in both cases, although much better in the second one. Furthermore, the good correlation between the closed-loop model response and the experimental results validates the modeling, the identification procedure, the control design, and its implementation. The paper concludes on a sensitivity analysis, in which the influence of the model parameters on the closed-loop response is shown.