This paper presents a vibration suppression control design of cantilever beam using two piezoelectric patches. One patch was used as an actuator element, while the other was used as a sensor. The controller design was designed via the balance realization reduction method to elect the reduced order model that is most controllable and observable. the sliding mode observer was designed to estimate six states from the reduced order model but three states are only used in the control law. Estimating a number of states larger than that used is in order to increase the estimation accuracy. Moreover, the state estimation error is proved bounded. An optimal LQR controller is designed then using the estimated states with the sliding mode observer, to suppress the vibration of a smart cantilever beam via the piezoelectric elements. The control spillover problem was avoided, by deriving an avoidance condition, to ensure the asymptotic stability for the proposed vibration control design. The numerical simulations were achieved to test the vibration attenuation ability of the proposed optimal control. For 15 mm initial tip displacement, the piezoelectric actuator found able to reduce the tip displacement to about 0.1 mm after 4s, while it was 1.5 mm in the open loop case. The current experimental results showed a good performance of the proposed LQR control law and the sliding mode observer, as well a good agreement with theoretical results.
