Experiment with vibrational control of a laser illuminated thermochemical system

Vibrational control is an open-loop control technique which utilizes zero mean parametric excitations to modify the behavior of dynamical systems in a desired manner. A potential applicability of vibrational control to laser illuminated thermochemical systems has been recently demonstrated analytically by Bentsman and Hvostov (1988). This paper presents experiments with vibrational stabilization of a laser illuminated thermochemical reaction that support the previous findings. A rectangular wave oscillating incident laser power is shown experimentally to induce asymptotically stable operating regimes with averages located at initially unstable steady states as predicted by vibrational control theory. Hence, vibrational control is demonstrated to be a feasible stabilizing strategy for laser induced reactions that needs no on-line measurements and complex actuators.