Actuator Saturation and Control Design for Buildings under Seismic Excitation

Efficient design techniques are presented for improving the response of seismic-excited buildings under actuators with limited capacity. Information regarding the actuator capacity and estimated peak ground acceleration is used to fine tune the controller and reduce conservatism. Both state feedback and observer-based controllers are discussed. The observer-based controller uses the measurement of the ground acceleration, though this requirement can be removed easily. Sufficient conditions for feasibility of a feedback controller are expressed in terms of linear matrix inequalities. Performance of the proposed techniques is illustrated through simulations of a six-story building subject to earthquake ground motion.