New Algorithm and Experiments for Helicopter Active Control of Structural Response

Active control of structural response on helicopter fuselages is an effective method for helicopter vibration control, but the existing algorithms for the method may cause the vibration control to fail or even diverge in the presence of large modeling errors in the control system and/or with time-varying excitation parameters. To effectively solve the problem, a frequency response function updating-harmonic identification algorithm is proposed and has been experimentally verified by using an experimental system of active control of structural response on a helicopter fuselage model structure with piezoelectric-stack-actuator-driven gearbox struts in this paper. Active vibration control experiments have been carried out by using the proposed algorithm and an electromagnetic exciter to excite the model structure. The experimental results show that the active control of structural response with the proposed algorithm can achieve effective, adaptive, and fast control effects in the presence of large phase modeling errors of frequency response functions and when changing the amplitude, phase, and frequency of exciting loads, and also show that the proposed algorithm has much better control effect and performance than the existing algorithm without frequency response function updating.