Patent ID: 7424989

Claim:
A method of damping vibrations of a wing of an aircraft, the aircraft including a control system, a movable structure operatively connected to the wing, and an actuator operatively coupled to the structure to move the structure in response to a command signal generated by the control system, the method comprising: processing a vibration signal representative of a vibration of the wing to obtain a vibration canceling signal, the processing performed independent of the control system in a vibration canceling circuit mechanically mounted on the actuator, the vibration canceling circuit including a vibration sensor that provides the vibration signal; providing the command signal from the control system to the vibration canceling circuit; in the vibration canceling circuit, superimposing the vibration canceling signal on the provided command signal to generate a resultant driver signal; operating the actuator with the resultant driver signal to cycle the structure to reduce the vibration of the wing; filtering, in the canceling circuit, the vibration signal from a position signal representative of a position of the actuator; and inputting the filtered position signal from the canceling circuit to the control system.