Vibration Control of a Steering Wheel Using Piezoelectric Actuators

In this paper active control is used to reduce the vibration of a steering wheel without changing static stiffness significantly. Multi-layer piezoelectric actuators are bonded to spokes to actively suppress the vibration of the wheel under environmental disturbance. A FEM model of the wheel is derived using structural analysis software NASTRAN and modified according to experimental data. Four natural vibration modes of the wheel are included in the state space model for control design and the others are neglected. The controller is designed using ji synthesis due to its ability of improving robust stability and robust performance. The digital counterpart of the controller is realized on a PC with A/D and D/A converters. Both simulation and experimental investigations are performed to show the effectiveness of the whole approach. Results show that the vibration level is considerably reduced. And, it is also found that the output capacity of the piezoelectric actuators and the performance of the digital controller are the main obstacles to obtain further improvement of the control performance.