Active vibration control of trim panel using a hybrid controller to regulate sound transmission

This paper presents a method for actively controlling the sound transmission through an aircraft trim panel using a hybrid feedforward/feedback control technique. The method involves measuring the frequency transfer function of the trim panel system and then creating an autoregressive moving average model using frequency domain curve fitting. The control technique is designed to minimize the vibration of a panel that has a limited piston-like motion. The hybrid controller consists of an adaptive feedforward controller that operates in conjunction with a linear quadratic Gaussian feedback controller. The feedback controller increases the damping capacity of the secondary plant to augment the convergence rate of the adaptive feedforward controller. Experimental results indicate that the hybrid controller effectively reduces the vibration of active trim panels and therefore also reduces the sound transmission of the panel.