Abstract: The internal balance technique is effective for the model reduction in flexible structures, especially the ones with dense frequencies. However, due to the difficulty in extracting the internal balance modal coordinates from the physical sensor readings, research on this topic has been mostly theoretical so far, and little has been done in experiments or engineering applications. This paper studies the internal balance method theoretically as well as experimentally and designs an active controller based on the reduction model. The research works on a digital signal processor (DSP) TMS320F2812-based experiment system with a flexible beam and proposes an approximate approach to access the internal balance modal coordinates. The simulation and test results have shown that the proposed approach is feasible and effective, and the designed controller is successful in restraining the beam vibration.