Research Article

International Journal of Advanced

Robotic Systems
July-August 2017: 1–9
Comparative study between positive ª The Author(s) 2017
DOI: 10.1177/1729881417718801
position feedback and negative derivative journals.sagepub.com/home/arx

feedback for vibration control of a flexible

arm featuring piezoelectric actuator

Hassaan Hussain Syed

Abstract
Positive position feedback control is the most common resonant control technique that has been studied for last three
decades. As a low-pass filter, positive position feedback is very sensitive to low-frequency disturbances. To overcome this
shortcoming of positive position feedback controller, negative derivative feedback controller, which acts as a bandpass
filter and can effectively control the lower and higher frequency disturbances, has been developed recently. So far, there is
no comparison work between positive position feedback and negative derivative feedback on flexible manipulator system.
Consequently, to fill this gap, in this article, both positive position feedback and negative derivative feedback controllers
are applied experimentally and analysed in terms of settling time and vibration attenuation at different damping ratios on a
single link flexible manipulator featuring piezoelectric actuator. Moreover, robustness with respect to natural frequency
variation is studied for the first time on flexible manipulator system. Based on experimental study conducted on the
particular system developed in this article, it has been observed that negative derivative feedback controller is more
effective than positive position feedback controller based on evaluated performance measures.

Keywords
Active vibration control, flexible manipulator, piezoelectric, modal control technique, PPF controller, NDF controller

Date received: 18 August 2016; accepted: 11 June 2017

Topic: Robot Manipulation and Control

Topic Editor: Andrey V Savkin
Associate Editor: Yongping Pan

Introduction
Flexible manipulator offers a large number of advantages
over rigid manipulators. These include faster response time,
lower power requirement, lower cost, high payload-to-weight
ratio and so on.1 These advantages have urged the use of
flexible manipulators in industry and space application. How-
ever, despite all these advantages, they are susceptible to
severe tip vibrations. These vibrations should be eliminated
or at least reduced for accurate and fast execution of task.
Several vibration control techniques have been applied to
flexible manipulator system during the last two decades.1–3
Siciliano and Book applied single perturbation approach
to control flexible manipulator system.4 The main idea was
to separate the two dynamics, that is, rigid joint motion and
elastic link motion and then designing different control
laws for both dynamics. H1 control has also been applied,
which describes the control problem as a mathematical
optimization problem and then finds appropriate controller
Mechanical Engineering Department, DHA Suffa University, Karachi,
Sindh, Pakistan
Corresponding author:
Hassaan Hussain Syed, Mechanical Engineering Department, DHA Suffa
University, DG-78, Off Khayaban-e-Tufail, Ph-VII (Ext.), DHA, Karachi,
Sindh 75500, Pakistan.
Email: hassaanhussain@gmail.com

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open-access-at-sage).
2 International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems
for its solution.5 Intelligent controllers such as neural net-
work6 and fuzzy logic7 have also been considered for vibra-
tion control of flexible manipulator system. The other
control techniques used to control flexible manipulator sys-
tem include input shaping technique,8 output redefinition,9
stable inversion in time domain,10 optimizing independent
motion of flexible arms11 and so on.
In many flexible structures, only a few vibration modes
are significant, so vibration can be controlled by controlling
only certain number of modes. In these situations, resonant
control techniques are appropriate solution to vibration
problem. In these techniques, a first- or second-order
dynamic system (compensator) is used to apply control
force on the system. Some state-of-the-art resonant control
techniques include active modal tuned mass damper
(AMTMD), positive position feedback (PPF) control, inte-
gral resonant control (IRC) and negative derivative feed-
back (NDF) control. IRC is one of the novel techniques
developed recently,12 and it takes advantage of pole-zero
interlacing property of collocated sensor–actuator pair to
damp vibration modes. This property ensures that the phase
of a collocated transfer function lies between 0 and 180 .
However, to satisfy this condition, only collocated sensor–
actuator pair should be used, this design constraint is not
practically feasible in certain applications. Recently,
AMTMD has been introduced,13 which uses passive TMD
formulation to define a resonant controller and then
finds the control force from its equation. One of the
oldest resonant control methods is PPF control and it was
introduced to control vibration of large flexible space
structures.14,15 In PPF, control structural position coordi-
nate is sent as an input to the compensator, and the product
of the compensator’s output and gain is fed back to the
structure in a positive sense to act as a control force. Shan
et al. applied PPF algorithm to control the vibration of a
single link flexible manipulator.16 Lately, NDF control
has been introduced.17 It works on feeding the velocity
of structure to compensator and then feeding back the
compensator velocity multiplied with some gain to the
structure in a negative sense.
There are numerous advantages associated with PPF
controller, such as it is insensitive to spillover, its magni-
tude rolls off quickly at high frequencies, it is relatively
easier to apply in real-world situations and its stability can
be ensured by adjusting only the stiffness properties of the
structure.16 Despite these advantages, PPF is very sensitive
to low-frequency disturbances as it works as a low-pass
filter and hence it causes a worsening of system behaviour
below the natural frequency. On the other hand, NDF
works as a bandpass filter and eliminates both the higher
and lower uncontrolled mode effect; therefore, it avoids
low-frequency worsening and it is more robust to spillover
effects. So far, there is no direct comparison work between
PPF and NDF on a single link flexible manipulator system.
Consequently, the main contribution of this work is to
compare vibration control performances of PPF and NDF
via implementation on a flexible manipulator featuring
smart piezoelectric actuator, where vibration is induced due
to slewing manoeuvre of the flexible arm. Furthermore, in
order to enhance the practicality and feasibility of these
techniques in real-world environment, robustness (with
respect to natural frequency variation) of the controllers
has been experimentally performed, studied and compared.
Moreover, in the previous research regarding NDF con-
trol,17 compensator damping ratio was kept equal to the
system damping ratio, while in this research, compensator
damping ratio is considered as a controlling parameter
which ensures more flexibility of design under different
operating conditions. In this process, the effect of compen-
sator’s damping ratio on controller’s performance has been
evaluated. Moreover, both controllers are compared in
terms of settling time and vibration attenuation. Hence, a
comprehensive performance evaluation of controllers is
provided.
As far as the application fields of these controllers are
concerned, they mostly have been applied to suppress
vibration of flexible beam. Author believes that these con-
trol techniques can be further applied to suppress vibra-
tion in aircraft wings and other flexible structures. Large
flexible space structures and space inflatable structures
are also one of the key applications of such techniques,
where PPF and NDF controllers can be used to control
structural vibration. Since these controllers work on reso-
nant control, therefore, they can be applied to control
sound waves as well.
This article is organized as follow. In ‘Resonant control
technique’ section, PPF and NDF control schemes are dis-
cussed in detail providing physical insight especially in the
case of NDF controller. Experimental set-up and results are
discussed in ‘Experimental set-up’ section along with fur-
ther investigation of the controllers. Finally, conclusion is
included in the last section.
Resonant control technique
The working principle of resonant control technique is very
simple, and it produces a damping effect on particular
vibration modes by applying a control force that is opposite
in phase to the velocity of structure at the resonance fre-
quencies under consideration. Figure 1 shows the block
diagram of resonant controller. Here, ‘q’ is the response
of the structure, that is, sensor output and ‘’ is the output
of the compensator.
PPF control
PPF is one of the widely used controllers in active vibration
control area. To explain its working principle, consider a
single degree of freedom system which is basically a single
decoupled mode as shown in the following equation
_ þ on2 qðtÞ ¼ gon2
q€ðtÞ þ 2on qðtÞ (1)
Syed
Figure 1. Block diagram of resonant controller.
Figure 2. Control scheme of PPF controller. PPF: positive
position feedback.
where  and on are the damping ratio and natural frequency
of the structure, respectively. g is the plant gain, _ is the
compensator output, that is, position of the compensator and
q is the position of the structure. PPF controller is imple-
mented using a second-order dynamic system defined as
_ þ oc2 ðtÞ ¼ kqoc2
€ðtÞ þ 2 c oc ðtÞ (2)
where  c and oc are the damping ratio and frequency of the
compensator, respectively, and k is the compensator gain.
Figure 2 shows the control scheme of PPF method. In sin-
gle degree of freedom form, PPF introduces a second-order
compensator, which is derived by the position response of
the structure. The position response of the compensator
multiplied with some gain and square of natural frequency
is then fed back to give the force input (voltage input to
piezoelectric actuator) to the structure.
In order to find the stability of PPF controller, combin-
ing equations (1) and (2), placing them in their second-
order form and assuming no external forces give18
     " 2 #   
q€ 2on 0 q_ on  gon2 q 0
þ þ 2 2
¼
€ 0 2 c oc _ koc oc  0
(3)
Goh and Caughey14 and Caughey19 used Routh Hurwitz
criteria to determine the stability conditions of PPF con-
troller, while Fanson and Caughey15 used Liapunov’s
approach to find the stability criteria of PPF controller.
Applying Liapunov’s approach to equation (3), one can
guarantee PPF stability as long as stiffness matrix is posi-
tive definite, that is, the eigenvalues are all positive, which
gives
3
ðon2 Þðoc2 Þ  ðgon2 ÞðkÞðoc2 Þ > 0
on2 oc2 ð1  gkÞ > 0
gk < 1
Hence, PPF controller will remain stable if the product
of gains is positive. The transfer function of PPF controller
is given by
ðsÞ koc 2
¼ 2 (4)
qðsÞ s þ 2 c oc s þ oc 2
Figure 3(a) and (b) shows the Bode plot of PPF control-
ler at  c ¼ 0.2 and  c ¼ 0.6, respectively. In present anal-
ysis, oc value is taken equal to the first natural frequency of
the system which is equal to 7 Hz and ‘k’ is taken as 1. It
can be seen from Bode plot that PPF is generally a low-pass
filter whose magnitude rolls off at higher frequencies. If we
look deep into the phase angle plot, we can notice that our
controller is providing 90 of phase with respect to the
input at resonant frequency. As our system equation has
same characteristics as our controller equation, it will also
provide 90 of phase with respect to its input at resonant
frequency, so the combined effect of compensator and sys-
tem will result in 180 of phase at the control frequency.
This signal is then positively fed back to the system thus
providing the cancelling effect.
Moreover, in Figure 3, the magnitude of resonant peak
shows that how much force we are applying on the struc-
ture through piezoelectric actuator, and the higher the mag-
nitude at resonant frequency the greater is the applied force
and vice versa. On the other hand, the slope of the phase
angle tells us about the robustness of the system. Robust-
ness is the ability of the controller to attenuate vibration
satisfactory even if there are discrepancies between the
actual natural frequency and the calculated one. Steeper
slope indicates that the phase angle value is varying rapidly
around resonant frequency; in this case, if there is slight
error between the actual natural frequency and the calcu-
lated one, then the controller will not be able to provide
required 90 phase and the controller performance will
degrade. Hence, robustness of the controller can be
increased by making phase angle slope around resonant
frequency less steeper. Applying the above explanation to
Figure 3, one can observe that lower  c value can apply
more force on the targeted mode but at the expense of
4 International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems

Figure 3. Bode plot of PPF controller. (a)  c ¼ 0.2. (b)  c ¼ 0.6. PPF: positive position feedback.

robustness of the controller, while higher  c value will

increase the robustness of the controller but will reduce its
effectiveness on the targeted mode. Hence, designer should
choose appropriate  c values depending on the system and
performance required.

NDF control
NDF includes a negative feedback of the velocity of the
Figure 4. Control scheme of NDF controller. NDF: negative
compensator output as a control force rather than the posi- derivative feedback.
tion as used in PPF control. Let us consider a single degree
of freedom system which is basically a single decoupled
mode In order to find the stability of NDF, controller combin-
ing equations (5) and (6), placing them in their second-
q€ðtÞ þ 2on qðtÞ
_ þ on2 qðtÞ ¼ go
_ n (5)
order form and assuming no external forces give
     " #   
where  and on are the damping ratio and natural frequency q€ 2on gon q_ on2 0 q 0
of the structure, respectively. g is the plant gain, _ is the þ þ ¼
€ koc 2 c oc _ 0 oc2  0
derivative of the compensator output, that is, velocity of the
compensator and q is the position of the structure. The NDF (7)
controller is implemented using a second-order dynamic
Again, using the same formulation as used in the previ-
system defined as
ous section, we can conclude that the NDF control stability
€ _ þ oc2 ðtÞ ¼ k qo
ðtÞ þ 2 c oc ðtÞ _ c (6) depends on the elements in the damping matrix only.
Again, using the same formulation as used in the previous
where  c and oc are the damping ratio and frequency of the section to determine the stability condition of PPF control,
compensator, respectively, and k is the controller gain. Fig- the NDF control stability can be found as
ure 4 shows the control scheme of NDF method. In single
degree of freedom form, NDF introduces a second-order ð2on Þð2 c oc Þ þ ðkoc Þðgon Þ > 0
compensator which is forced by velocity response of the oc on ð4 c þ kgÞ > 0
structure. The velocity response of the compensator multi- kg >  4 c
plied with some gain and natural frequency is then fed back
in a negative sense to give the force input to the structure. So, the NDF controller will remain stable if the above
The transfer function of the compensator rolls off quickly equation is satisfied. The transfer function of NDF is
both at high and low frequencies, hence, making it suitable ðsÞ koc s
for controlling both the lower and higher frequency modes ¼ 2 (8)
qðsÞ s þ 2 c oc s þ oc 2
of the structure with well-separated modes.
Syed 5

Figure 5. Bode plot of NDF controller. (a)  c ¼ 0.2. (b)  c ¼ 0.6. NDF: negative derivative feedback.

Figure 5 shows the Bode plot of NDF controller at  c ¼ 0.2

and  c ¼ 0.6. Moreover, in this analysis, oc value is taken
equal to 7 Hz and ‘k’ is taken as 1. It can be seen from Bode
plot that NDF is generally a bandpass filter. If we look deep
into the phase angle plot, we can notice that our controller is
providing no phase shift with respect to (w.r.t) the input (i.e.
vibration signal) at resonant frequency. Similarly, our system
equation will also provide no phase shift w.r.t its input, so the
combine effect of controller and system will result in no phase
shift w.r.t to input signal. This signal is then negatively fed
back to the system thus providing the cancelling effect. Figure 6. Experimental set-up of a single link flexible manipulator.
Similarly, as stated in the previous section, lower  c
value can apply more force on the targeted mode at
the same gain value but at the expense of robustness of the
controller, while increasing the  c value will increase the
robustness of the controller but will reduce its effectiveness
on the targeted mode.
In the previous research,17damping ratio of the compen-
sator ( c) was taken equal to the damping ratio of the struc-
ture (). This requires exact determination of the damping
ratio of the structure. However, in this research,  c is con-
sidered as a controlling parameter because the changes in  c
value heavily affect the robustness of the controller. As we
know that a flexible system is extremely lightly damped, that
is, it has a very low damping ratio (). If  c is taken equal to
, it will increase the performance of the controller (by
increasing the controlling force on a particular mode) but
will reduce its robustness (w.r.t the natural frequency varia-
tion) significantly. Hence,  c value cannot always be taken Figure 7. Schematic of experimental set-up.
equal to  value and should be varied according to the per-
formance and robustness required for a particular system.
and its schematic is shown in Figure 7. A single link flex-
ible manipulator was constructed using an aluminium beam
Experimental set-up (575  44  3 mm3) coupled to a Maxon DC motor
Experimental set-up that is used to verify the two (148867 RE 40 150 W, 24 V). The motor is equipped with
approaches presented in this article is shown in Figure 6 a gear (203122 GP42C, 66:1) and an encoder (110514
6 International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems
Table 1. Properties of piezoelectric sensor and actuator.
Property Value
Device size (mm3) 50.8  38.1  0.762
Device weight (g) 7.93
Capacitance (F) 0.20
Full scale voltage range (V) +200
Direct charge coefficient, d33 (C/N) 390  1012
Transverse charge coefficient, d31 (C/N) 190  1012
Direct voltage coefficient, g33 (Vm/N) 24  103
Transverse voltage coefficient, g31 (Vm/N) 11.3  103
HEDL5540 500cpt, 3ch). Two piezoelectric patches (QP20
W) from Midé were bonded using Eccobond 45 clear epoxy
on each side of the beam, one serving as a sensor while the
other one as an actuator. Both piezoelectric patches are
bonded near the root of the manipulator. Properties of
piezoelectric patch are shown in Table 1. An accelerometer
is attached at the tip to measure the response of the manip-
ulator. The motor is operated using a voltage supply and a
controller. The input voltage to piezoelectric actuator is
given through a voltage amplifier (PCB 790A01) having
a constant gain of 20.
The control algorithms that have been presented in this
article require prior knowledge of natural frequencies of the
system that are needed to be controlled. Therefore, the first
step is to determine the natural frequencies of the system.
Finite-element method (FEM) simulations and experiments
both are performed in this regard. In experimental study,
the beam is excited by an exciter which is attached 30 mm
away from the fixed end. An accelerometer is used as a
sensor to obtain the response of the beam which is attached
near the tip. This experimental study is performed to verify
the FEM results. The results are compared in Table 2,
which shows quite good verification.
Experimental results
Linear segment with parabolic blends and minimum time tra-
jectories have been used for the trajectory generation. Accord-
ing to trajectory, manipulator rotates 60 in 1.628 s (36.850 /
s), and this movement is fast enough to provide substantial
vibration at the tip of the manipulator. Detailed experiments
have been performed to test the effectiveness of the presented
methods on a single link flexible manipulator system. Perfor-
mances of both controllers have been compared using time.
Moreover, robustness study of controllers has also been per-
formed. Following subsections provide details of the various
experimental results.
Uncontrolled time and frequency response of manipulator.
Figure 8(a) shows the uncontrolled time response plots of
the manipulator obtained from an accelerometer attached to
the manipulator’s tip. Settling time has also been shown;
here, 0.005 V amplitude has been chosen for settling time
calculation and this amplitude is so small that it can be
Table 2. Comparison of natural frequencies.
First natural Second natural
Method frequency (Hz) frequency (Hz)
Ansys 7.35 42.5
Experimental 7 41
considered as the instance where the response has almost
died out. One can see from settling time value that the tip
oscillation is taking too much time (20 s) to diminish. This
time should be reduced in order to increase the productivity
and accuracy of the system and to eliminate any possible
damage to the structure. Power spectrum of response is
shown in Figure 8(b); one can deduce from the result that
in our application, only the first mode is contributing to the
vibration of the beam which is the case with most of the
applications. So if we are able to control the first mode, we
can control the vibration of the manipulator. However, in
some other applications, more than one mode can contrib-
ute to the vibration of the beam; in that case instead of using
only one compensator, one has to use parallel compensators
where each compensator is designed according to each
targeted mode. Hence, each compensator will target the
individual mode and their combine effect will provide the
vibration reduction of the system.
Controlled time response. For real-time control, PPF and
NDF controllers were implemented digitally using DAQ
board. In case of NDF controller, which requires velocity
signal, finite difference method has been used to obtain
velocity signal from discrete-time position signal (piezo-
electric sensor output). For simplicity, compensator gain
‘k’ is taken as 1, while the plant gain ‘g’ is varied. More-
over, in all experiments, frequency of the compensator is
taken equal to the frequency of the system to be controlled
and tuned value of gain (g) is used for each case. Control-
ler’s gains are modified in real time in order to get the best
possible closed-loop performance. The best choice for gain
value is determined by observing the best auto power spec-
trum response of manipulator’s tip while manually varying
the controller gain at different  c values. Table 3 shows
different ‘g’ values used in the experiments for different
 c values. One can notice from the result that as  c value is
increased, ‘g’ value is also increased. This can be explained
from controller’s Bode plot as shown in ‘Resonant control
technique’ section, that is, at higher  c values, the magni-
tude of output from the controller is less than the output at
lower  c values; hence, at higher  c values, ‘g’ can be
further increased in order to raise the voltage input to an
optimum level. Figure 9 shows the controlled time
responses for PPF and NDF controllers at different control-
ler damping ratios ( c), respectively. Time ‘0’ corresponds
to the time when the motor has stopped running. One can
easily notice from the results that settling time decreases as
the compensator damping ratio ‘ c’ is decreased. The effect
Syed
Figure 8. Response at manipulator’s tip. (a) Uncontrolled time response. (b) Uncontrolled frequency response.
Table 3. Tuned gain values at different  c.
Gain ‘g’
c PPF controller NDF controller
0.2 0.00030 0.000045
0.5 0.00035 0.00009
0.8 0.0005 0.0001
PPF: positive position feedback; NDF: negative derivative feedback.
of  c value on controller’s performance will be further
discussed in robustness study. Finally, settling time results
show that NDF controller has performed better at all  c
values as compared to PPF controller.
In many automated industries, robotic arms are working
continuously and repeatedly; in this regard, the controller
should be able to provide constant performance during
repetitive manoeuvrings. To check this, we conducted
seven experimental trials at each ‘ c’ value under same
conditions. We further calculated the average settling time
and standard deviation of all the experimental trials which
have been shown in Table 4. One can easily conclude from
Table 3 that settling time readings at each ‘ c’ value are
almost constant and there is not much deviation in the
results. Hence, it is shown that the controllers are able to
give constant performance during different experimental
trials and overall NDF is a better choice than PPF.
Robustness study of each control law
In this section, we will evaluate the performance of the
controllers when there is a difference between the natural
frequency of the system and the controller centre fre-
quency. This study is useful in situations where the natural
frequency of the system is difficult to obtain or have large
errors in it. In ‘PPF control’ and ‘NDF control’ sections, it
was concluded from Bode plot analysis that robustness of
controllers depends on the ‘ c’ value, the higher the ‘ c’
7
value the better is the robustness of the controllers and vice
versa. In order to experimentally validate this concept, two
experiments were conducted using 0.8 and 0.2 as ‘ c’ value.
These experiments were performed to study the effect of
compensator damping ratio on compensator’s robustness
when the difference between the natural frequency of the
system and the controller centre frequency is increased.
The discrepancies in natural frequency estimation were
visualized by changing the compensator centre frequency
from 0.75*w to 4*w in regular steps and then obtaining the
time response of the manipulator at each centre frequency;
here, ‘w’ represents the original natural frequency of the
system. A total of six experiment trials were performed at
each compensator centre frequency, and these trails were
further used to obtain the vibration attenuation in terms of
auto-power spectrum of manipulator. Figure 10(a) and (b)
shows the vibration attenuation using different controller
centre frequency at  c ¼ 0.2 and  c ¼ 0.8, respectively. In
general, it can be observed from the graphs that when the
difference between the original natural frequency of the
system and the controller centre frequency is increased, the
magnitude of vibration attenuation degrades significantly.
This degradation of performance is quite severe at  c ¼ 0.2,
where there is large drop in vibration attenuation as we
move away from ‘w’. While at  c ¼ 0.8, the drop in vibra-
tion attenuation is not that extreme and our controller is still
able to provide 35 dB of vibration attenuation even if there
is þ300% (if controller centre frequency ¼ 4w) error in
natural frequency estimation.
As explained in ‘Resonant control technique’ section
regarding robustness of the controllers, the same can be
deduced from the experimental analysis presented in this
section, that is, the robustness of the controllers can be
increased by increasing the  c value. Furthermore,
through these experiments, the effect of  c values on
controller’s performance has been highlighted; hence, it
is shown that the optimal value of  c depends on whether
the natural frequency of the system is known accurately
or not and how much it is expected to change. If the
8 International Journal of Advanced Robotic Systems

Figure 9. Time response of controllers. (a)  c ¼ 0.2. (b)  c ¼ 0.5. (c)  c ¼ 0.8.

Table 4. Average settling time and standard deviation at different  c.

PPF controller (settling time ‘s’) Average settling time Standard deviation
Trials 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
 c ¼ 0.2 5.522 5.530 5.518 5.548 5.534 5.530 5.519 5.529 0.010
 c ¼ 0.5 6.345 6.359 6.349 6.340 6.352 6.359 6.349 6.350 0.007
 c ¼ 0.8 7.369 7.367 7.360 7.357 7.359 7.360 7.375 7.364 0.007
NDF controller (settling time ‘s’)
Trials 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
 c ¼ 0.2 3.572 3.578 3.572 3.570 3.565 3.578 3.585 3.574 0.007
 c ¼ 0.5 4.325 4.327 4.316 4.328 4.329 4.325 4.329 4.326 0.005
 c ¼ 0.8 6.589 6.595 6.581 6.585 6.581 6.588 6.594 6.588 0.006
PPF: positive position feedback; NDF: negative derivative feedback.

system natural frequency is known accurately, lower  c
value is a better choice.
Conclusion
In this article, vibration suppression performances of two
resonant control techniques namely PPF and NDF have been
compared. For this purpose, these techniques were applied
experimentally on a single link flexible manipulator featur-
ing piezoelectric actuator and were further analysed in terms
of settling time and robustness at different controllers damp-
ing ratios. After thorough study of time domain results and
robustness, it has been concluded that NDF controller is
overall more effective in suppressing vibration than PPF
controller based on particular system developed in this study.
Author believes that these control techniques can be further
Syed
Figure 10. Vibration attenuation as compared to the uncontrolled case at different compensator frequencies. (a)  c ¼ 0.2. (b)  c ¼ 0.8.
applied to control structural vibration in flexible space
robots, multi degree of freedom manipulators, lightweight
wind turbine blades and other structures where only few
modes are contributing to the vibration of the system. The
future work will be focused on applying these control
techniques to multi degree of freedom system.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
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