To produce negative membrane control force for the photostrictive actuators, a new multi-layer actuator configuration is firstly presented, followed by the independent modal control of a cylindrical shell laminated with this new actuator configuration. Moreover, in view of the model uncertainty existing in intelligent structure system, as well as the nonlinear and time-variant characteristics of photostrictive actuators, a self-organizing fuzzy controller (SOFC) based on a performance function gradient-descent method is employed. The proposed control scheme need no fuzzy control rules and overcome the difficulty of building control rules in the conventional fuzzy controller. To verify the effectiveness of the proposed control scheme, numerical simulation is carried out. The results demonstrate that the proposed self-organizing fuzzy control strategy provides better vibration control effect and realizes a non-contact active vibration control of flexible thin shell structure.