Application of a proportional feedback controller for active control of a vibration isolator

This paper proposes the application of a proportional controller to active vibration control incorporated with a passive vibration isolator to suppress its resonant oscillation at its natural frequency. Vibration acceleration acquired from an accelerometer is fed to the controller as a feedback signal. The processed signal from the controller is transmitted to the voice coil actuator in order to control the vibration. Firstly, based on the theoretical equations which govern the vibrational system, the physical mechanism of active control in the total system is studied. Then, vibration on a stiff foundation and passive isolator is measured in order to understand the efficiency of the traditional vibration control method. Finally, an experiment on active vibration control is performed to study the suppression efficiency of the oscillation of the passive vibration isolator. The experiment results show that 99% of the vibration energy can be cancelled by active control.