An active vibration control strategy for a flexible link using distributed ionic polymer metal composites

Ionic polymer metal composites are a class of electro-active polymers that are gaining importance as smart actuators due to their large bending deflection. The property of generating high strains with low actuation voltage makes ionic polymer metal composites (IPMC) suitable for applications requiring large motion such as in large deflection vibration suppression. In this paper we propose an application of IPMC as an active damper for large deflection vibration control of a flexible link. The modes of vibration for a long flexible link are derived using the modal approach and two IPMC patches are placed to suppress the vibration. A distributed PD controller is designed to suppress the vibration of the flexible link for the desired positioning of the tip. Simulations are first done to demonstrate effective vibration suppression and the results proved that the proposed method can suppress vibration effectively. Experiments are conducted to verify the application of IPMC for active vibration suppression. The performance of the proposed distributed PD controller is also found to be better than a single PD controller loop.