Active Mass Damper

The Quanser Active Mass Damper (AMD) is a bench-scale model of a tall building equipped with an active damper. It is ideal for studying control techniques used to actively suppress vibrations in tall buildings. The AMD experiment is available in three different configurations: 1-floor AMD, 2-floor AMD with a single active cart, and 2-floor AMD with two active carts.

The Active Mass Damper (AMD) plant consists of a building-like structure with a controllable linear cart on the top. The cart is driven by a high-quality DC motor through a rack and pinion mechanism. The AMD frame is made of aluminum and is flexible along its facade. The top floor is instrumented with an accelerometer to measure the acceleration of the “roof” relative to the ground. The cart position is directly measured using an encoder. The encoder shaft meshes with the track via an additional pinion. Two masses can be attached to the cart to increase its inertia to absorb vibrations of the structure. The masses can be used individually, together or can be removed to assess the robustness of the controller and effects of variations in parameters.