Shape Control of Flexible Structures

TOSHIO KASHIWASE, MASAKI TABATA AND KAZUO TSUCHIYA

Central Research Laboratory
Mitsubishi Electric Corporation
Amagasaki, Hyogo, 661 Japan
SADAO AKISHITA
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Ritsumeikan University
Kyoto, 603 Japan
ABSTRACT: A shape control algorithm for a large flexible structure is proposed: (a) a
reduced order model, which represents the precise shape of a structure; (b) a shape esti-
mation filter, which reduces the estimation error caused not only by the white noises of
sensor measurements but also by the variation of the D.C. offsets of sensors; (c) a simple
and robust controller to regulate many state variables by using many sensors and actuators.
The controller is realized by a zero proportional, integral, derivative controller (zero P-ID
controller) with the concept of low authority control/high authority control (LAC/HAC).
The proposed shape control algorithm is illustrated through applications to a numerical
model of an experimental setup.

INTRODUCTION
will be
very flexible, frequencies and the natural will
N within spacecraft
I fallSPACE, A
controller bandwidth (Balas, 1982). On the ground, the stiffness
a
of the primary mirror of a large telescope will be insufficient to maintain a
desired shape precisely. The control of a flexible structure causes significant
problems which can be divided into two categories, vibration control and shape
control. Vibration control suppresses the vibration modes of the structure. Shape
control maintains the shape of the structure precisely.
The shape control in this paper is quasi-static shape control by using spatially
discrete sensors and actuators under some disturbances, for example, thermal de-
formation and gravitational force. Three significant shape control problems are
described:
. selection of state variables
Generally, it is suitable to adopt state variables which explicitly represent
the behavior to be controlled. In the case of active damping control, it is effec-
tive to select modal amplitudes as state variables because modal amplitudes
are suitable for representation of the vibration of the structure. Since the object

110

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of shape control is to adjust the displacements of the structure, modal ampli-

tudes are not always effective in the case of shape control. It is important for
a designer to select the suitable state variables which represent the shape of the
structure precisely even if a low order model is used.
~
algorithm for shape estimation filter
A shape estimation filter, capable of estimating the shape of the continuous
structure by using many spatially discrete sensors is needed in shape control.
The filter requires two functions: reducing the estimation errors caused by a
temporal noise in sensor measurements, and reducing the variation of the D.C.
offsets of the sensors.
~
algorithm for multivariable control
In shape control, state variables are controlled by using many sensors and
actuators. In this sense, the shape control is a multivariable control. There-
fore, in order to make the shape control practical, a simple and robust design
algorithm is required.
Some work on shape control has been done. Ostroff (1973) treats the shape con-
trol problem of the mirror of a large astronomical telescope. The behavior of the
mirror is expressed in terms of the modal amplitudes of vibration. An optimal
control algorithm which minimizes the steady state error is proposed. Weeks
(1984) solves a shape control problem for a flexible beam by using a continuous
model. The shape control algorithm is derived using Green’s function which
shows the relationship between the applied external forces and the displacements
of the beam. Aubrun and Lorell (1987) treat the shape control problem of the
segmented primary mirror of a telescope. An integral control law is adopted as
a shape control technique. The evaluations of stability and steady state error are
studied.

NIODELS

Shape Control Experimental Setup

The shape controllers are designed for the shape control experimental setup in
our laboratory. This section shows the configuration and equation of motion of
the setup. A photograph of the setup is illustrated in Figure I. The controlled ob-
ject is a flat aluminum plate, 700 mm x 800 mm x I mm. The shape of the
plate is controlled actively. It is suspended horizontally by a support system at the
center. Sixteen pairs of sensor/actuators are available. The sensors measure the
displacements at their locations without contact. The actuators are composed of
pairs of upper and lower electromagnets, which attract iron pieces on the plate,
and provide the control forces to the plate without contact.

Mathematical Model
Adynamical model of the setup is derived using a finite element method, di-
viding the flexible plate into small elements. x is a vector in which the compo-

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Figure 1. Shape control experimental setup.

nents define the displacements of nodal points from their undeformed position.
The dynamical model of the setup is given by:

where M( = M’’ 0) is a mass matrix, K( = KT ? 0) is a stiffness matrix, f is

>
an force vector, y is a sensor output vector, ~ is a measurement
applied external
noise vector, and C is a measurement matrix. The external force consists of the
actuator control force Ie, the gravity force ~, and other unknown force 1;, as:

where g is the acceleration of gravity. ive assume that f~ and f~ are dominant and
that we can neglect the influence of f~ at the design phase as follows:

Table 1 compares the experimentally and numerically determined natural fre-

quencies with experimental modal damping parameters. A reduced order model
representing the displacements of actuator points is derived for the design of the
shape estimation filter and shape controller. Partitioning Equations (1) and (5)
into actuator degrees of freedom (DOF) x,, and other DOF xu yields:

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Neglecting the inertia term and setting f« 0, and assuming thatf, is negligi-
=

ble, the static equilibrium state is expressed as:

where fa --- fea + ha. The lower part of (7) yields

where

Substitution of (8) into the upper part of (7) yields:

where

Equations (8) and (10) refer to the static matrix condensation of (1) into the actua-
tor DOF (Guyan, 1965). Using (8), the displacement x can be written as:

where

-Table 1. Open loop eigenvalues.

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and I means identity matrix. Substitution of (12) into (6) yields the reduced order
model:

Because this reduced order model can express the displacements of actuator
points precisely in a low frequency region (Tsuchiya et al., 1989), and the
number of independent DOF of achievable shape cannot exceed the number of
the actuator DOF, the order of this reduced order model is sufhcient for quasi-
static shape control problem.

DESIGN OF SHAPE ESTTh1ATION FILTER AND CONTROLLER

Design ofShape Estimation Filter

This section discusses the design of a shape estimation filter, which estimates
a deformed shape of a flexible structure by using the spatially discrete displace-
ment sensor outputs. The sensor outputs contain noise not only over time but also
over space. &dquo;Noise over space&dquo; refers to the variation of D.C. offsets among indi-
vidual sensor measurements. Thus some means is needed to reduce the influence
of above spatial noise. We consider the following optimality criterion to get the
optimal estimation of the displacements from the measured value xt at the dis-
placement sensors:

where (A) meansthe estimated value, and X2 is a weighting coefficient to be ad-

justed to reduce the influence of noise. In the case of À2 = 0, this optimality cri-
terion leads conventional least squares method. The second term is proportional
to the strain energy of the estimated shape, and brings about robustness for the
random offset noise on the sensors. If known component exists in x (for example,
the gravitational deformation can be predicted), it can be extracted as:

where xg is the known portion of x. When xg is extracted, Equation (15) becomes:

To estimate the whole shape of the structure from the finite number of displace-
ments at sensor points, an interpolation function is needed (Meirovitch and
Baruh, 1985, and Balas, 1985). Here we employ the interpolation function based
upon the static matrix condensation to compose the shape estimation filter for
(15) or (17). Assuming that the dominant external forces acting on the structure

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are from the finite number of actuators, we condense the whole displacements it
into the smaller DOF it., containing the actuator DOF as:

Substituting (18) into (17) yields

where T;o means the subset of 7Y corresponding to the sensor DOF. Minimiza-
tion of (19) with respect to ua yields:

where

The second term in (21) reduces the influence of higher spatial frequency noise
in the sensor measurements ~so Using (20), the whole shape of the structure can
be estimated as:

If the known value x, is compensated,

Determination of the Optimal Target Shape

The problem of holding a structure in a desired shape by means of finite num-
ber of actuator forcesf, is now considered. The optimal target shape x achievable
by control can be determined by minimizing the following optimality criterion:

where x, is the ideal target shape. Assuming that no unknown external force exists
but the actuator -force f,, the shape of the structure achievable by control is ex-
pressed as:

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Thus, the optimality condition to minimize (25) is obtained as:

where (+) means the pseudo-inverse. Using (27),

.
the optimal target shape is ex-

pressed as follous:

where

Figure 2, which will be discussed later, illustrates the optimal shape made by 5
actuators under gravity where the ideal shape is nat.

Design of Shape Controller

This section discusses the design algorithm of the shape controller. The shape
control is a multivariable control using many sensors and actuators. These sen-
sors are not always colocated to actuators. In this paper, we assume that two types
of sensors are available for the shape control: noncolocated high accuracy dis-
placement sensors and colocated low accuracy velocity sensors. The shape con-
trol is performed using the estimated displacements at the points of actuators

Figure 2. Exact deformation by concentrated forces and gravity [contour interval = 0. ~

(mm)].

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 117

from the noncolocated sensor measurements. At the design phase of the shape
controller, it is assumed that all of the sensors are colocated to the actuators. The
controller is designed as follows: the reduced order model (14), in which order
is equivalent to the number of actuators, is used for the design of the shape con-
troller. By modal decomposition, Equation (14) can be rewritten as:

The i-th mode is written as:

We adopt a zero P-ID controller for the control of (36) (Manabe et al., 1981). In
order to attenuate the deformation by disturbances and not to destabilize the
modes of vibrations, control forces are given by:

where xp, _ (Diq,,i. The characteristic equation of the controlled mode is

written as: .

and closed loop poles become -a;, - ~’~W~, t j 1 - ~’;cu~;. Because the closed
loop poles represent the dynamic characteristics explicitly, it is easy to design the
controller parameters kr,kD which realize desired dynamic characteristics. In the
case of feedback using the displacements and velocities at the points of actuators,
control forces are given by:

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where

and W~; is the modal vector of i-th mode. In the above discussion, the use of colo-
cated sensors is assumed. Next, the controller, which uses the noncolocated high
accuracy sensors and the colocated low accuracy sensors, is presented. The dis-
placements estimated by using the output of the noncolocated high accuracy sen-
sors include estimation errors, which are mainly due to the model errors. There-
fore, in accordance with the concept of LAC/HAC, the feedback signals of
derivative action (LAC) are constructed from the output of the colocated low ac-
curacy sensors, and the feedback signals of integral action (HAC) are constructed
from the output of the noncolocated high accuracy sensors (Aubrun, 1980). In
this way, robustness for model errors are performed because the direct velocity
feedback control using the colocated sensors has the characteristics of positivity
(Balas, 1979). The shape control force is applied by the following equation:

where xp is the subset of x in (24) corresponding to the actuator DOF.

DESIGN EXAIMPLES

Shape Estimation Filter

This section discusses accuracy and property of the shape estimation filter
(20). The example model is explained in the second section. For the external
forces, both concentrated forces on 5 actuator points and the gravitational force
are applied.
Figure 2 shows the gravitational deformation calculated by the full DOF FEM
model. Numerical simulations are performed for estimating the above deformed
shape by using the shape estimation filters (20)-(24). Location of sensors is
shown in Figure 3. The root mean square (RMS) deviation of the estimated shape
from the exact shape is obtained over the whole area for the cases filter DOF con-
densed to 5, 9, and 11. The sensor measurements include the spatial noise (varia-
tion of D.C. offsets) except in some cases. The spatial noise is assumed to follow
the normal distribution, of which the standard deviation is 2.5 % of the maximum
amplitude of the exact deformation. The remaining DOF of filters after the ma-
trix condensation (called filter DOF), are set on the actuator positions and
another 4 or 6 points.
The simulation results are shown in Figure 4. Figure 4(a) shows the result of
the known portion of the deformation being extracted and compensated as (24)

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Figure 3. Sensorlactuator location (11 or 18 sensors/5 actuators).

(X = 0). Figure 4(b) and 4(c) demonstrate the results when the gravitational de-
formation is not extracted. In Figure 4(b) X equals 0, and in Figure 4(c) X has
been adjusted empirically to minimize the influence of noise. As shown in Figure
4(a), the filters, based upon the static matrix condensation into the DOF of only
actuator points, have high accuracy when external forces act only on actuator
points. The exact solution can be obtained by them when noise is not included.
Even if noise is included, they demonstrate a high capability of noise reduction
when the number of sensors is sufficiently larger than that of the filter DOF.
However, if the number of sensors decreases to nearly the same number as the
filter DOF, the RMS error becomes greater because of the noise (when X = 0).
This tendency is also seen in Figure 4(b) when X also equals 0. In the case of Fig-
ure 4(b) some residual deviation remains even if no noise exists, because the dis-
tributed force (gravity) is acting in addition to the actuator forces and the effect
of gravity has not been extracted and has not been compensated. The above resid-
ual error decreases as the number of filter DOF increases when the noise is not
included, because the distributed force can be approximated by several concen-
trated forces in these cases. However, if the noise is included, the RMS error
becomes larger when the number of filter DOF is nearly the same as that of the
sensors (for example, the case of 11 DOF filter using 11 sensors). The reason for
this degradation is that the filter of larger DOF takes in the higher spatial fre-
quency noise more sensitively.
The second term of (21) has the effect of decreasing this error as shown in Fig-

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Figure 4. Shape estimation error. (a) gravity_compensated, ~ =
0; (b) gravity not compen-
sated, X 0; (c) gravity not compensated, X 0.05.
= =

120
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 121

ure 4(c). In the calculation of Figure 4(c), the value of X is adjusted empirically
to minimize the estimation error [X
means the ratio of trace of the second term
to the first term in (21)]. It apparently demonstrates, by comparison with Figure
4(b), that the above additional constraint term reduces the spatial noise. The
merit of this fiIter corresponds to reducing the amplitudes of higher spatial fre-
quency modes by the weighting of l/cu2 which is based upon the stiffness of the
structure. Thus, the presented shape estimation filter is efficient for reducing the
spatial noise when the number of sensors is not sufF~cient.
Shape Controller
Figure 5 shows the real poles - a; of the closed loop system using (42). In this
design example, controller parameters k¡, kD are designed with attention to the
first mode of vibration. The existence of real poles implies that the closed loop
system responds to reference signals as a first order lag system. The placement
of these real poles is determined by the feedback of the integral action. The com-
parison of Figures 6(a), (b) and (c) shows the effects of the zero P-ID control
based upon LAC/HAC. In this evaluation the structural damping ratios toi are set
to 0.005. Figure 6(a) shows the damping ratios ti of vibration modes decrease as

Figure 5. Pole distance a to the origin versus integral action gain k, jfeed6ack of Equation
(42), kD = 7.9 x 10-3 ki].

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122

Figure 6. Damping ratio ~ versus integral action gain ki., (a) feedback of Equation (42),
kD = 0; (b) feedback of Equation (42), kD 7.9 x 10-3 ki; (c) feedback of Equation (43),
’
=

ka = 7.9 x 10-3 k,. _

the integral action gain k, increases in the case of the integral action only: kD = 0
in (42). On the other hand, Figure 6(b) shows the damping ratios ~, in the case
of the zero P-ID control in (42). In this case, all vibration modes including resid-
ual modes are kept stable. Moreover, Figure 6(c) shows the damping ratios ~, in
the case of the zero P-ID control using noncolocated sensors for the feedback sig-
nal of the derivative action as the following equation:

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 123

In this case, the damping ratios ? of the residual vibration modes decrease as the
integral action gain k, increases because the reconstruction of the residual modes
cannot be guaranteed.

Numerical Simulation of Time Response

This section discusses the numerical simulation results of the shape controller
which regulates the shape of the plate by using 11 noncolocated sensors, 5 colo-
cated sensors and 5 actuators. It is assumed the plate is deformed by the gravita-
tional force at the initial state. Figure 7 shows the time responses of the control
force and the displacement at the point of actuator #1. As can be seen, the dis-
placement converges into the desired value without the phenomenon of spillover
instability.

Figure 7. Tme responses of control force and displacement at actuator no. 1.

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124

CONCLUSIONS
Three shape control problems were treated in this paper. The first problem was
the selection of state variables. A reduced order model, able to represent the
shape of the structure precisely, was derived. The second problem was the design
of a shape estimation filter capable of estimating the shape of the structure by us-
ing many spatially discrete sensors. Because the shape controller must use many
sensors, the estimation errors are caused not only by the white noise of sensor
measurements but also by the variation of the D.C. offsets of the sensors. A shape
estimation filter, which reduces these kinds of errors positively, was proposed.
The last problem was the design of the shape controller. The shape control is a
multivariable control using many sensors and actuators; therefore, the design al-
gorithm had to be simple, and the stability of the control system had to be robust
for model errors. Therefore, the zero P-ID control with the concept of LAC/HAC
was proposed. Evaluations of the shape estimation filters and the shape con-
trollers were performed by the parameter studies, and the verification of the total
control system was performed by a numerical simulation of time response.

NOMENCLATURE
C measurement matrix
f applied external force
fa force vector of actuator point .

g actuator control force vector

f8 gravity force vector
fp unknown force vector
F matrix defined in Equation (29)
g acceleration of gravity
G,, G2 matrices defined in Equations (21), (22) ’

I identity matrix
J, J, performance indices
K stiffness matrix in a finite element method
K&dquo;&dquo;, Kau, K&dquo;b, Kuu .submatrices of stiffness matrix
M mass matrix in a finite element method
M.., Mau, M.., M.. submatrices of mass matrix
Ti , T; matrices defined in Equations (8), (13)
T;o subset of Ti corresponding to the sensor DOF
x displacement vector of nodal points in a finite element
method
x., xu displacement vectors of actuator points and other points
Xr ideal target shape
3~ sensor output vector
X weighting coefficients
~ measurement noise vector
(&dquo;) time derivative
[ ]~ transpose of a matrix

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(A) estimated value

( )* measured value
(-) value of achievable shape
[ ]; pseudo-inverse
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