Application of Acceleration Tracking Control for a Small-Scale Earthquake Simulator

Earthquake simulators have gained relevance in the endeavor to prepare for earthquake disasters. It provided new platforms for researcher to structure behaviors, risk management, and preparedness for earthquakes. In line with this, a gap identified in terms of the behaviour of a more specific scale than structures, which are specific areas or room in the structure. This led to the development of a small-scale shake table aiming to study behaviour of things like medical equipment, beds, etc. inside rooms in hospitals. This paper proposes a control system methodology to be applied in this small-scale earthquake simulator that involves acceleration tracking as an input in a closed-loop control system. With the given results, it is recommended to use a DC motor with velocity control and a feedback of velocity to control velocity overshoots.