Active Vibration Isolation Using a Voice Coil Actuator with Absolute Velocity Feedback Control

Abstract

This paper describes the active vibration isolation using a voice coil actuator with absolute velocity feedback control for highly sensitive instruments (e.g., atomic force microscopes) which suffer from building vibration. Compared with traditional isolators, the main advantage of the proposed isolation system is that it produces no isolator resonance. The absolute vibration velocity signal is acquired from an accelerator and processed through an integrator, and is then input to the controller as a feedback signal. The controller output signal then drives the voice coil actuator to produce a sky-hook damper force. In practice, the phase response of the integrator at low frequencies (2~6 Hz) deviates from 90 degree which is the exact phase difference between the vibration velocity and acceleration. Therefore, an adaptive filter is used to compensate for the phase error. Analysis of this active vibration isolation system and comparison of model predictions to experimental results indicate that the proposed method significantly reduces transmissibility at resonance without incurring increased transmissibility at higher frequencies.

Keywords

• active vibration isolation
• proportional control
• adaptive filter
• sky-hook damper
• absolute vibration velocity
• voice coil actuator