Double Panel with Skyhook Active Damping Control Units for Control of Sound Radiation

This paper presents an experimental study on decentralized velocity feedback control on a double panel consisting of an external aluminum panel and a honeycomb trim panel. The decentralized feedback loops are formed by a 3×3 array of coil-magnet electrodynamic actuators that react off the trim panel and a lightweight stiff frame structure located in the air gap between the two panels. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) accelerometers are located on the opposite side of the trim panel in correspondence to the electrodynamic actuators. The grid structure is designed to provide an inertial reference to the actuators. In this way the velocity feedback control loops produce skyhook active damping on the double panel, which minimizes the vibrational response and sound radiation of the trim panel at low audio frequencies. Two configurations are considered where the grid structure is either weakly coupled or strongly coupled to the external panel. Both stability and control performance of the two configurations are analyzed experimentally. The study shows that the control configuration with the weakly coupled grid structure enables the implementation of larger stable feedback control gains, which lead to reductions of the sound radiated by the trim panel between 10 and 30 dB for the first seven resonance peaks.