Patent ID: 8002233

Claim:
A distributed vibration isolation system for damping vibrations in a mass, the system comprising: a plurality of hybrid vibration isolators, each hybrid vibration isolator adapted to be coupled to the mass at a connection point, and at least partially responsive to local commands to damp vibrations in the mass, each vibration isolator in operable communication with at least one other of the plurality of vibration isolators, and each hybrid vibration isolator comprising: an isolator controller configured to implement a control algorithm and including a global model representative of the distributed vibration isolation system, the isolator controller coupled to receive data representative of isolator data and operable, in response thereto, to update the control algorithm, the isolator controller further adapted to receive data representative of the structure at the connection point and, in response thereto, to generate the local commands, and a wireless transceiver in operable communication with the isolator controller, the wireless transceiver configured to (i) at least selectively receive the isolator data transmitted thereto from the at least one other of the plurality of vibration isolators and supply the data representative of the isolator data to the isolator controller and (ii) at least selectively transmit isolator data to the at least one other of the plurality of vibration isolators, the isolator data representative of at least a state of the vibration isolator.