AFCGA as Preferable Intelligent Tuning Method to Reduce the Vibration of Suspended Handle-Power Tool

Abstract

This research investigated different intelligent tuning methods of Active Force Control (AFC) scheme to reduce vibration of suspended handle. The suspended handle emulates power tool handles such as chainsaw and drillers whereby these tools can cause high vibration during operation and might cause health problems to the workers especially when exposed for long period of time. Hence, Active Vibration Control (AVC) is applied to ensure a better health assurance of these workers. Instead of using common Proportional-Integral-Derivatives (PID) controller, AFC is introduced to the AVC system to attenuate vibration and this requires some parameters tuning in order to achieve optimum performance. With PID as basic controller, AFC is added to the system to further improves the vibration control. Several intelligent tuning methods have been simulated in this work such as Crude Approximation (CA), Fuzzy Logic (FL), Iterative Learning Method (ILM) and Genetic Algorithm (GA). As a result, the AFC schemes showed better vibration attenuation compared to the basic PID in most of the cases with different combination of disturbances. Generally, AFCGA generates better response compared to AFCCA, AFCFL and AFCILM. This study proved that AFC can be a good controller applied in the vibration control of industrial power tool devices.