Acceleration Feedback-Based Active and Passive Vibration Control of Landing Gear Components

In this paper, a novel methodology is developed to absorb the vibrations of relatively large-scale aircraft structures such as landing gear components. This is accomplished using a combination of active and passive controls. A system equivalent to a Boeing 747 landing gear break rod is selected as a test bed. The expected goal of this study is to dissipate the fundamental vibration mode of the tube. A beam-type dynamic absorber and a constrained layer damping treatment are used for passive vibration control. Simulations and experimental results are provided for the dynamic absorber case. In addition, full-state feedback along with state estimation based on the “reciprocal state space” method is presented. The plant responses and estimates for both the open loop and closed loop systems are shown in simulations. An optimal controller based on acceleration measurements using piezoelectric actuators is implemented using a hardware in the loop protocol for the active vibration control of the system. The integrated controller with passive and active components absorbs the fundamental mode of the system, according to the experimental results.