An active mass damper system for structural control using real-time wireless sensors

Abstract

In the field of civil engineering, wireless sensor networks are conceived to be deployed in structural monitoring systems. In the structural control applications, the requirement of continuous and real-time sensing represents the main challenge for the wireless sensor network due to the problem of data loss. In this paper, the authors attempt to introduce wireless links and a digital controller into a structural control system for a reduced-scale three-story steel frame mounted on a shaking table. The structural control system mainly consists of four accelerometers, a structural controller, and an active mass damper as actuator. The designed wireless sensors are based on the use of recent low-power System-on-Chip wireless CC1110 transceivers, which integrate an 8051 microcontroller core and are able to operate in most of the license-free ISM (Industrial, Scientific and Medical) frequency bands. The active mass damper is driven by a newly designed digital PID (proportional, integral, and derivative) direct-current motor controller, which is based on the high integration power amplifier LMD18200 and the enhanced 8051 core in CC1110. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.