Decentralized Control Strategies with Wireless Sensing and Actuation

Advances in wireless communication and embedded computing technologies can have significant impacts in structural sensing, monitoring and control. Prior research efforts have demonstrated the benefits of low-cost wireless sensing systems for structural monitoring. This paper discusses the possibilities of extending the functionalities of wireless sensors for structural control applications. By incorporating a computational core module and an actuation signal generation module, wireless sensors can be extended to compute and issue appropriate control commands for structural actuation and real-time control applications. This paper discusses laboratory tests to assess the viability of utilizing wireless sensing and actuation for decentralized structural control. A six-story scaled structure installed with semi-active magnetorheological (MR) dampers is employed in the experiment. Wireless sensors and controllers are employed to compute and apply feedback control forces in real time. Different centralized and decentralized feedback control architectures are investigated. Furthermore decentralized control strategies and information processing issues related to wireless sensing and control are discussed.