The application of smart structures toward feedback suppression in amplified acoustic guitars

Smart structures technology can be applied to amplified acoustic guitars to prevent instability resulting from acoustic feedback. This work presents a coupled model of the guitar dynamics and the acoustic feedback mechanism, and explains how a simple control loop using a piezoelectric ceramic actuator can be used to reduce the effects of acoustic feedback. In addition to model simulations, experimental results using a real system and a simple controller are presented. The results show that a significantly higher (7 dB) guitar output can be achieved before instability, without detrimentally affecting the amplified and unamplified guitar response.