CAREER: Control of Vibratory Energy Harvesting and Energy Constrained Systems

该学院早期职业发展(CALEAR)研究计划将使用现代控制理论中的概念来回答有关广泛类别的机电振动系统中能量的优化转换和管理的基本问题，这些系统包括：(I)用于从海浪中获取公用事业规模能量的浮动结构，(Ii)具有自供电致动网络的土木结构，用于在地震事件期间重新分配和消散振动能量，以及(Iii)分布式压电换能器，用于清除无线传感应用中的环境振动能量。这些系统表现出一定的核心相似性，这使得它们可以在统一的控制理论框架下进行分析。它们都是分布式控制问题，其中获取的能量、结构变形和潮流必须在随机设置下平衡。这项研究将描述这类系统的电子设备中固有的非线性功率流约束限制其控制能力的方式。这种控制可行性的表征将被用来为这些系统创建一个广义的多目标最优控制综合，它在分析上是容易处理的，但也足够通用，以处理在不同应用中可能出现的各种设计目标和情况。这里进行的研究将包括线性和非线性控制器设计方法，还将研究控制、电子和结构子系统的并行优化。实验验证这些概念将在上面列出的三个例子的背景下，与杜克大学和加州大学圣地亚哥分校的合作者一起进行。这项研究的结果将在广泛的控制应用中产生影响，在这些应用中，能量是重要的，实验的重点是针对与当代社会密切相关的问题。海浪能是一种宝贵的、尚未开发的可再生资源，其转换技术仍在不断涌现。这项研究将确定控制浮动波能转换器发电的方式，以优化其产生有用能量的能力。同时，在自供电系统中进行的减少地震风险和无线损害检测的研究解决了两个重大挑战？面对现代结构工程师。最近这些领域的大多数创新都集中在设备设计上，这项研究的结果将被用来确定这些设备的最佳控制，以最大限度地提高它们从振动结构中提取有用能量的能力。通过与杜克大学正在实施的新能源证书的协调，波能实验项目将成为机械、土木工程和电气工程本科生以及环境学院之间多学科互动的焦点。此外，该项目将利用杜克？S外展项目的成功，不仅为杜克大学的学生提供研究机会，也为在大北卡罗来纳州其他地区学习的人口统计数据不足的本科生提供研究机会。

This Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) research program will use concepts from modern control theory to answer fundamental questions regarding the optimal transduction and management of energy in a broad class of electromechanical vibratory systems, including (i) Floating structures to harvest utility-scale power from ocean waves, (ii) Civil structures with self-powered actuation networks to redistribute and dissipate vibration energy during seismic events, and (iii) Distributed piezoelectric transducers to scavenge ambient vibration energy for wireless sensing applications. These systems exhibit certain core similarities which permit their analysis in a unified control-theoretic framework. They are all distributed control problems in which harvested energy, structural deformation, and power flow must be balanced in a stochastic setting. This research will characterize the manner in which the nonlinear power flow constraints inherent in the electronics of such systems restrict their ability to be controlled. This characterization of control feasibility will in turn be used to create a generalized multi-objective optimal control synthesis for these systems, which is analytically tractable, yet versatile enough to handle the variety of design goals and circumstances which may arise in different applications. The research conducted here will encompass both linear and nonlinear controller design methods, and will also investigate the concurrent optimization of the control, electronic, and structural subsystems. Experimental validation these concepts will be conducted, in the context of the three examples listed above, in conjunction with collaborators at Duke and UCSD. Results from this research will have implications in a wide array of control applications where energy is important, and the experimental focus is aimed at problems of great relevance to contemporary society. Ocean wave energy is a valuable, untapped, renewable resource, and the technology for its conversion is still emerging. This research will determine the manner in which to control power generation from a floating wave energy converter, to optimize its ability to produce useful energy. Meanwhile, the research conducted in self-powered systems for seismic risk reduction and wireless damage detection address two of the ?grand challenges? facing modern structural engineers. Most of the recent innovation in these areas has focused on device design, and results from this research will be used to determine the optimal control of these devices to maximize their ability to extract useful energy from a vibrating structure. Through coordination with a new Energy Certificate being implemented at Duke, the wave energy experimental program will serve as the focal point for multidisciplinary interaction between undergraduate students in Mechanical, Civil, and Electrical Engineering, as well as the School of the Environment. Additionally, this project will leverage the success of Duke?s outreach programs to provide research opportunities not only to students at Duke, but also to undergraduates from underrepresented demographics, studying elsewhere in the greater North Carolina region.