9402392 Aktan PIs obtained permission from the City of Cincinnati to install an active vibration control system under the ballroom floor of the Cincinnati Convention Center. Highly perceptible floor vibration has occurred during large dance events, causing concern to ballroom patrons. The control system which will feature several electromagnetic actuators, several dozens of different types of sensor and a modular open hardware system will remain installed over a sufficiently long time period in order to permit other researchers in the national program to participate in many of the basic, system-integration and experimental demonstration aspects. The research will make use of the multiple sensor/actuator availability for developing an validating failure detection and accommodation algorithms which will have the capability to detect any hardware/software failures. The algorithms will be based on the adaptive modal filter concept which was used successfully for the active-control of the highway bridge. Also to be explored is the development of a secondary capability of the control system to continuously monitor itself for accommodating the deliberate or random changes which will occur in the structural characteristics. Such a continuous monitoring of the facility characteristics will permit to uncouple the changes in the structural dynamic properties due to occupation/owner intervention from large fluctuations caused by ambient condition changes. As importantly, a realistic multi- output installation is expected to reveal as-yet-undiscovered phenomena such as those related to inter-component interactions. Such issues will have to be identified and addressed in order to bring this technology forward to widespread industry acceptance.
