Desensitizing structural-control design

A new method for targeted robustness optimization is presented. This method allows the analyst to 'target' the most critical performance parameter (or family of design requirements with almost the same criticality) for enhanced protection from uncertainties in the model. To create this protection, this method uses knowledge about the uncertainties in some of the parameters of the model - this information is usually available to the structural analyst. The power of the targeted robustness method is demonstrated numerically using an active damping example. The results show that the most critical damping ratio is protected - its sensitivity to the uncertainties is far below those of non-critical damping ratios.