9317722 Smith Advances in the area of automatic control, artificial intelligence, smart materials, sensors, and actuators have made the development of intelligent structures feasible. Such structures would have the ability to identify their dynamical state, including parameter variations; identify functional descriptions of external stimuli, e.g. earthquake loads, high winds, traffic; and adaptively generate the required actuation forces in the presence of major stimuli. In order to develop such an intelligent structure several research issues have to be studied. This investigation focuses on the formulation and development of a neural-based control scheme, with emphasis on learning of structural parameter variations, and design and construction of a new low-powered adaptive actuation system for structures. The resulting intelligent structural control system will have a fuzzy based uncertainty compensator. The overall research objective is to evaluate and compare performances of intelligent and conventional control systems. A prototype structure, namely a small scaled cable bridge will be constructed for experimental purposes. The proposed actuators and control systems will be integrated and implemented on this experimental structure, and the effects of soil - structure interaction will be emulated and considered. ***
