FRF-based optimization strategies of actuator on/off status for active vibration isolation systems in underwater vehicle applications

Abstract

Active vibration isolation (AVI) is a state-of-the-art technique used to attenuate vibration and noise of the underwater vehicle's power machinery. In certain operational conditions, the pre-installed actuator in AVI system may be redundant, and only a subset of them is required for effective vibration suppression. Therefore, optimization of the actuator configuration is necessary. However, the installation position of the actuators is fixed during the design stage, and only the on/off status of the actuators is adjustable. Additionally, the structural complexity of the practical system poses challenges to the conventional state-space-equation-based optimization methods. In this paper, an optimization strategy based on frequency response functions (FRFs) is proposed to optimize the on/off status of the actuators. The optimization problem of actuator status is formulated as an 0–1 nonlinear programming, which can be solved by teaching-learning based optimization (TLBO), a heuristic algorithm. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate that the proposed optimization strategy can effectively determine the optimal actuator configuration under specific disturbance conditions, with only a subset of the actuators being activated to achieve sufficient vibration suppression.