ON LINEAR-SATURATION (LS) CONTROL OF BUILDINGS

This paper proposes the Linear-Saturation (LS) control as a new and suitable control algorithm for buildings with an Active Mass Damper (AMD) system. It takes into account the physical constraints on the AMD system and uncertainties in the loading. The LS control consists of a low-gain linear control when the system is close to the zero state and bang-bang control otherwise. This paper provides a precise formulation of the saturation control and presents optimal solutions which can be implemented in the state space. A numerical scheme to synthesize the switching surface which is needed to implement the bang-bang control is developed. Furthermore, a method to demarcate the region for linear control is proposed. The effectiveness of the LS control is verified through numerical simulations with one- and multi-storey buildings subjected to earthquakes. It is shown that the LS control provides better performance compared to even the gain-scheduled LQ control.