A new dynamic model of a three-dimensional overhead crane is derived. The dynamic model describes the simultaneous traveling, traversing, and hoisting motions. For anti-swing control, this paper proposes a decoupled control scheme.
A new dynamic model of a three-dimensional overhead crane is derived. The dynamic model describes the simultaneous traveling, traversing, and hoisting motions. For anti-swing control, this paper proposes a decoupled control scheme.
A new dynamic model of a three-dimensional overhead crane is derived. The dynamic model describes the simultaneous traveling, traversing, and hoisting motions. For anti-swing control, this paper proposes a decoupled control scheme.
University of Suwon, Suwcn P. 0. Box 77, Seoul 440-600, Korea Modeling and Control of a Three-Dimensional Overhead Crane In this paper, a new dynamic model of a three-dimensional overhead crane is derived based on a newly defined two-degree-of-freedom swing angle. The dynamic model describes the simultaneous traveling, traversing, and hoisting motions of the crane and the resulting load swing. For anti-swing control, this paper proposes a decoupled control scheme based on the dynamic model linearized around the stable equilibrium. The decoupled scheme guarantees not only rapid damping of load swing but also accurate control of crane position and load hoisting for the practical case of simulta- neous traveling, traversing, and slow hoisting motions, which is also proven by experiments. 1 Introduction Overhead cranes are widely used in industry for transporta- tion of heavy loads. However, the crane acceleration, required for motion, always induces undesirable load swing. Larger ac- celeration usually induces larger load swing. Load hoisting also tends to aggravate the load swing. This unavoidable load swing frequently causes efficiency drop, load damages, and even acci- dents. For safety, overhead cranes are usually set in motion with their loads hoisted higher than any possible obstacles and the length of hoisting ropes is kept constant or slowly varying while the cranes are in motion. Various attempts have been made to control the load swing. The number of the control inputs for a crane system is by nature less than that of the system outputs, which makes the related control problems com- plicated. The crane control consists of crane motion control, load hoisting control, and load swing suppression. Mita and Kanai (1979) solved a minimum-time control prob- lem for swing-free velocity profiles of a crane under the con- straint of zero load swing at the start and end of acceleration. Ohnishi et al. (1981) proposed an anti-swing control based on the swing dynamics of the load. Starr (1985) proposed an open- loop control algorithm, which requires the constraint of zero initial load swing. Ridout (1987) designed a feedback control law using the root locus method. Yu et al. (1995) proposed a nonlinear control based on a singular perturbation method, which is valid only if the load mass is much larger than the crane mass. Moustafa and Abou-El-Yazid (1996) discussed the stability of a crane control system for hoisting motions of the load. Lee et al. (1997) proposed an anti-swing control law that guaranteed both rapid damping of load swing and accurate control of crane position. All the above researchers have focused on the control of two- dimensional overhead cranes that allow only the traveling and hoisting motions; however, in most factories and warehouses three-dimensional overhead cranes are normally used. Moustafa and Ebeid (1988) derived a dynamic model of a three-dimen- sional overhead crane based on the spherical coordinates (Meir- ovitch, 1970 and Greenwood, 1988), and then designed a trajec- tory-dependent control based on the dynamic model linearized along a desired trajectory. Their linearized model is coupled and its parameters are dependent on crane trajectories; this com- pUcates the related control designs and applications. Their con- Contributed by the Dynamic Systems and Control Division for publication in the JOURNAL OF DYNAMIC SYSTEMS, MEASUREMENT, AND CONTROL. Manuscript received by the Dynamic Systems and Control Division December 2, 1996. Asso- ciate Technical Editor: R. Redfield. trol addresses only the suppression of load swing; consequently, their control results in considerable position errors in crane motion and load hoisting. This paper presents a practical solution to the modeling and control of three-dimensional overhead cranes, where the load swing, crane motion, and load hoisting are considered all to- gether in the modeling and control. First, a new two-degree-of- freedom swing angle is defined associated with the travel and traverse axes of a three-dimensional overhead crane. Then a new nonlinear dynamic model for the crane is derived based on the new swing angle definition. The new dynamic model is equivalent to that of a three-link flexible robot having the first flexible mode. Next, the new dynamic model is linearized around the vertical stable equilibrium. Then the resulting dy- namic model is decoupled and symmetric with respect to the traveling and traversing motions of the crane and the model parameters are independent of crane trajectory, which signifi- cantly simplifies the control problems. With this result, this paper proposes a new decoupled anti-swing control scheme that guarantees accurate control of crane position and load hoisting as well as rapid damping of load swing for the practical case of simultaneous traveling, traversing, and slow hoisting motions. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In Sec- tion 2, a nonlinear dynamic model is derived based on a new two-degree-of-freedom swing angle, for a three-dimensional overhead crane. In Section 3, the nonlinear dynamic model is linearized, and then a new decoupled anti-swing control scheme is designed using the loop shaping, root locus, and gain schedul- ing methods. In Section 4, the decoupled control scheme is applied to a three-dimensional prototype overhead crane for performance evaluation. In Section 5, the conclusions are drawn for this study. 2 Modeling of a Three-Dimensional Overhead Crane 2.1 Definition of Generalized Coordinates. Figure 1 shows the coordinate systems of a three-dimensional overhead crane and its load. XYZ is the fixed coordinate system and XjYjZr is the trolley coordinate system which moves with the trolley. The origin of the trolley coordinate system is (x, y, 0) in the fixed coordinate system. Each axis of the trolley coordinate system is parallel to the counterpart of the fixed coordinate system. Yr is defined along the girder which is not shown in the figure. The trolley moves on the girder in the Yj (traverse) direction and the girder and Yj axis move in the XT (travel) direction, d is the swing angle of the load in an arbitrary direc- tion in space and has two components: 9^ and Oy, where 9^ is Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control Copyright 1998 by ASME DECEMBER 1998, Vol. 120 / 471 Downloaded 08 Jun 2012 to 194.27.128.8. Redistribution subject to ASME license or copyright; see http://www.asme.org/terms/Terms_Use.cfm Load Fig. 1 Coordinate systems of a three-dimensional overhead crane the swing angle projected on the XrZr plane and 9y is the swing angle measured from the XTZT plane. The position of the load (Xm, ym^ Zm) in the fixed coordinate system is given by x = X + I sin 6^ cos 6y, y,=y + l sin Oy, Zm = -I COS 0^ cos 9y, (1) (2) (3) where / denotes the rope length. The purpose of this study is to control the motion of both the crane and its load. Hence x, y, I, 9^, and 9y are defined as the generalized coordinates to describe the motion. 2.2 Dynamic Model of a Three-Dimensional Overhead Crane. In this section, the equations of motion of a crane system are derived using Lagrange's equation (Meirovitch, 1970). In this study, the load is considered as a point mass. The mass and stiffness of the rope are also neglected. K, the kinetic energy of the crane and its load, and P, the potential energy of the load, are given as 1 /?? K = - (M,x' + Myf + M,l') + -vl, (4) P = mgl{\ cos 9x cos 6y), (5) where M^,, My, and Mi are the x (traveling), y (traversing), and / (hoisting down) components of the crane mass and the equivalent masses of the rotating parts such as motors and their drive trains, respectively; m, g, and u denote the load mass, the gravitational acceleration, and the load speed, respectively; I'm {= x'^n+ yl, + Zm) IS obtained as vl= x'^ + f + t^ + /^ cos^ 9y9l + /^ej + 2(sin 9, cos 9yi + / cos 9^ cos 9yd^ I sin 9^ sin 9y'9y)x + 2ism9yi + lcos9y9y)y. (6) Lagrangian L and Rayleigh's dissipation function F are de- fined as 1 *tti L = -{M,x' + Myf + M,P) + ~vi + mgl(cos 9 cos ^y -1) (7) F = \ (D,x' + Dyf + D,h, (8) where )^, D,, and D, denote the viscous damping coefficients associated with the x, y, and / motions, respectively. The equations of motion of the crane system are obtained by inserting L and F into Lagrange's equations associated with the generalized coordinates x, 9^, y, 6y, and /, respectively: (M, -I-m)x + ml cos 9^ cos 9y9:, ml sin 9^ sin 9y9y + m sin 9^ cos 9yl + D^x + 2m cos 9^ cos 9yi'9^ 2m sin 9^ sin 9yWy -ml sin 9^ cos 9ydl - 2ml cos 9J sin 9y9jy - ml sin ^^ cos 9y9y = /, , (9) mP cos^ 9y9x + ml cos 9^ cos 9yX + 2ml cos^9yi6x 2ml^ sin 9y cos 9y9;t9y + mgl sin 9^ cos 9y = 0, (10) {My + m)y + ml cos 9y9y + m sin 9yi + Dyy +2OT c o s 9yi9y - ml s i n 9y9y =fy, (11) m/^^y + ml cos ^yy ml sin 0^: sin 5j,jfc' + 2mll9y + ml^ cos 9y sin ^^^^ + mg/ cos 6^ sin 5^ = 0, (12) {Ml + m)l + m sin 9^ cos ^^A' + m sin ^^y + A^ - ml cos^^i mlb] mg cos 9^ cos 9y = fi, (13) where ^ , / j , , and ^ are the driving forces for the x, y, and / motions, respectively. 2.3 Remarks on the Dynamic Model. The dynamic model for a three-dimensional overhead crane has the following features thanks to the characteristics of the proposed swing angle description. When y = y = 9y = 9y = 9y = 0, the dynamic model of a three-dimensional overhead crane is reduced to that of a two- dimensional overhead crane (Lee et al., 1997) moving along the X axis. The same is true for the Y axis when x = x = 9^ = 9. = h = 0. The dynamic model is equivalent to that of a three-link flexi- ble robot having the first flexible mode (Luca and Siciliano, 1991). That is, the dynamic model ( 9) -( 13) can be repre- sented by the following matrix-vector form: M(q)q-I-Z)q-F C(<i, q) q-h g( q) = f, (14) where the state vector q, the driving force vector f, the gravita- tional force vector g( q) , and the damping matrix D are defined as q ^ {x, y; I, 9,, 9yY, f -( / . , / / 0, 0 ) ^ g( q) ^ (0, 0, -mg cos 9^ cos 9y, mgl sin 9^, cos 9,, mgl cos 9^ sin 9yY, and D = diag (D;c, D,, Z);, 0, 0), respectively; the 5 X 5 symmetric mass matrix A/(q) can be readily obtained from the q terms and is positive definite when / > 0 and \9y\ < 7r/2; the 5 X 5 Coriolis and centrifugal force matrix C(q, q) that satisfies M( q) -2C(q, q) = -( M( q ) -2C( ^, q))^ can be found from the q and q terms. 3 Design of a Control Law In this section, a new anti-swing control scheme will be pro- posed. First, the nonlinear dynamic model will be linearized. Second, a new decoupled anti-swing control law will be de- signed for the case of constant rope length. Third, an indepen- dent rope length controller will be designed and a gain schedul- ing method will be adopted, for slowly varying rope length. Finally, the stability of the resulting control system will be analyzed for slowly varying rope length. 3.1 Linearization of the Dynamic Model. In practice, the maximum acceleration of overhead cranes is much smaller than the gravitational acceleration, and the rope length is kept constant or slowly varying while the cranes are in motion. This study considers these practical cases: |ji;'i < g, \y\ < g, \l\ 472 /Vol. 120, DECEMBER 1998 Transactions of the ASME Downloaded 08 Jun 2012 to 194.27.128.8. Redistribution subject to ASME license or copyright; see http://www.asme.org/terms/Terms_Use.cfm < g, and | / | <^ | / | , which imply |/6'J g, \ie,\ <4 g, and hence small swing (|(9J ^ 1 and |6,| <? 1). Then |(9,| 1 and \dy\ <^ 1 are also valid. For small swing, sin 9^ ^ 9^, sin 6y = By, cos 9, ^ i, and cos ^^ =^ 1. In this case, with the trigonometric functions approximated, the high order terms in the nonlinear model can be neglected. Then the nonlinear model (9) - (13) is simplified to the following linearized model: (M,. + m)x + D,x + ml9,- 19, + x + gO, = 0, {My + m)y + Dyy + mWy Wy + y + gOy = 0, =/ ; , = / v. (15) (16) (17) (18) {Ml + m)l + D,'l - ing =/ , . (19) This linearized dynamic model consists of the travel dynam- ics (15) and (16), the traverse dynamics (17) and (18), and the independent load hoisting dynamics (19). The travel and traverse dynamics are decoupled and symmetric, which means that the control of a three-dimensional overhead crane is trans- formed into that of two independent two-dimensional overhead cranes having the same load hoisting dynamics. In this study, an anti-swing control law will be designed based on the travel dynamics and will be used for the control of both traveling and traversing motions, and a rope length control law will be de- signed based on the load hoisting dynamics (19). 3.2 Anti-Swing Control for Constant Rope Length. In this section, a new controller design method for two-dimen- sional overhead cranes is proposed based on the linearized model using the loop shaping and root locus methods. The proposed method is free from the usual constraints on the load mass (Ridout, 1987 and Yu et al., 1995). 3.2.1 Design of a Velocity Servo System. In practice, the driving force f, for a crane is usually generated by electric motors controlled by torque servo controllers, whose dynamics can be neglected since they are usually a hundred times faster than the trolley and girder dynamics. Hence in practical cases, fj, is proportional to u,, the input to the torque servo controller: L = K,u (20) where K, is the crane-dependent constant. Then the dynamic model (15) and (16) can be rewritten as (21) (22) M;,x + DjtX - mgO, = K,,iit, I'L + X + g9, = 0. First, mgdi, the coupling term in the crane dynamics (21), is precompensated. That is, u, is designed as = u mgBJKs, (23) where u is the new input to be determined below. Then the crane dynamics (21) can be rewritten as MxX + DxX = KgU. (24) Laplace transformation is applied to Eq. (24) to obtain the following transfer function: G,{s) - K. Vis) _ U{s) M,s + D, ' (25) where .v is the independent complex variable; V{s) and U{s) are the Laplace transforms of v { = x) and u, respectively. Second, a velocity servo controller Ks{s) is designed based on.G,{s) using the loop shaping method; first, the open-loop transfer function G(.v) {=K^,{s)G,{s))\s shaped as G{s) = Kls according to the loop shaping criteria (Doyle et al., 1992), velocity servo controller trolley dynamics Vris) ^*9- ^ r"- ' ^A4s+D^ Ks S Kvs(s) u(s) Ks MrS + D^ Gt(s) V(s) Fig. 2 Schematic diagram of velocity servo system and then the resulting K,{s) is obtained from K,{s) = G{s)/ GM: KM) = g M,s + D, K, s (26) where K is the control gain. Larger Ky leads to better command tracking, but K must not be too large for robust stability and sensor noise attenuation. The schematic diagram of the velocity servo system is shown in Fig. 2. Then the transfer function of the velocity servo system G,(.?) is obtained as G,(.v) - V K V, s + K, (27) where V,. denotes the reference input to the velocity servo sys- tem. The crane motors are sometimes controlled by velocity servo controllers instead of the torque servo controllers. Then the design method proposed by Lee et al. (1997) can be readily applied. 3.2.2 Design of a Position Servo System. Figure 3 shows the schematic diagram of the position servo system, where K,s{s) is the position servo controller, G,,(i) is the velocity servo system, D{s) is the velocity disturbances, and l/.s is the integrator for conversion of crane velocity to crane position. The slip of crane wheels is an example of D(.y). As above, A'.(.v) is designed based on Gy,,{s) using the loop shaping method; the open-loop transfer function G,o(s) {=K{s)Gys{s)/s) is shaped as G.,{s) K s + K,/Kp K S S S + Ky (28) where Kp and K, are the constants satisfying KilKp < K,, < /f; Kj, is the crossover frequency of G^(i). Then the position servo controller A^{s) can be obtained from K.{s) = sG^o{s)/G.,{s): {KpS + K,) K^As) = (29) The resulting closed-loop transfer function G(,?) is then given as G.{s) - X Ky{KpS + K,) X, , ?' -I- KyS^ + KyKpS + KyK, ' (30) where X and X,. are the Laplace transforms of x and x,., the reference input to the position servo system, respectively. Dv(s) position servo velocity controller servo system J^ KpS+Ki s K^(s) Kv S + Ky G.,(s) +1 + 1 s 'X(s) Fig. 3 Sctiematic diagram of position servo system Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control DECEMBER 1998, Vol. 120 / 473 Downloaded 08 Jun 2012 to 194.27.128.8. Redistribution subject to ASME license or copyright; see http://www.asme.org/terms/Terms_Use.cfm 3.2.3 Design of the Overall Control System. Figure 4 shows the overall control system, which consists of the position servo system G^sis), the swing dynamics of the load G,(s), and the anti-swing controller Ke(s); G,(s) is obtained from Eq. (22): G,(s) @(s) -s^ X(s) ~ Is^ + (31) where 0(.s) is the Laplace transform of 9^. Kf{s) is designed based on Gj,,(,s) and Giis) using the root locus method; the root locus of the overall control system is shaped as that shown in Fig. 5 by placing the poles and zeros of Kg(s) in the proper places. Then the resulting Ksis) is given as Ke(s) = K s + K s s + K,i KpS + K, ' (32) where K^ is the control gain; K and Kj are the constants satis- fying K > K^ > 0; sl{KpS H- K,) is adopted on purpose to cancel {KpS + Ki)ls of K^^sis). Then Kg{s) becomes a lag com- pensator when the output of KD{S) is directly inputted to the velocity servo system G^is). In this way, the swing angle and crane motion can be separately controlled. Figure 5 shows the root locus of the overall control system for / = 1 m, K, = 24.0, Kp = 1.6, K, = 0.08, K = 1.5, and K^ = 0.6. The optimum value of Ka can be determined from the root locus. The overall control system is shown to be stable regardless of the value of K,,. However, the system may become unstable for a large value of K,, since the nonlinear dynamics were neglected in the linearization process. 3.2.4 Remarks on the Control Performance. The perfor- mance of the overall control system can be analyzed using the transfer functions from each input to each output in Fig. 4. The transfer functions for Z = 1 m and Ka = 3.55 with the control gains obtained above are as follows: X^ 38.4(s + 0.05)(s + 0. 6) ( j ' + 9.8) -38. 4 ^"(j' + 0.05)(s + 0.6) Gcis) s(s + 0.6)(s + 24)(s^ + 9.8) 0 Xr A" GAs) _ -s\s + 0.6)(5 + 24) (33) (34) (35) (36) where Gds) is defined as G,(.s) = (s + 0.05)(s + O.S2)(s + 3.1) X (s + n.26)[(s + 1.69)^ + 1.47^]. (37) As expected, the closed-loop poles shown in G^s) are all stable with sufficient damping; accordingly, so are the transfer functions ( 33) - ( 36) . X/X^ shows excellent command tracking real axis Fig. 5 Root locus of the overall control system in the low frequency region. 0/ X, shows that the steady state swing angle is zero for ramp position commands. According to X/D^ and &/D, the steady-state crane position is not influenced by step disturbances and the steady state swing angle is not affected by parabola disturbances. 3.3 Anti-Swing Control for Slowly Varying Rope Length. A new decoupled anti-swing control law has been designed above for the case of constant rope length. In practice, however, the rope length sometimes needs to be set slowly varying for load hoisting while cranes are in motion. Accord- ingly, this practical case will be considered here. 3.3.] Design of a Rope Length Servo Controller. As with the crane dynamics (21), the load hoisting dynamics (19) can be written as (Ml + m)l + D/l - mg = K,iU,i, (38) where u,i is the input to the torque servo controller of the hoisting motor and K^i is the crane-dependent constant. As above, a precompensator is designed first. That is, u,i in Eq. (38) is selected as u = u, - mglK,i (39) where Ui is the new control input to be determined. Then the load hoisting dynamics (38) becomes (Af, + m)l + D,l = K,,u,. (40) Fig. 4 Schematic diagram of the overall control system The dynamics (24) and (40) are of the same structure. There- fore a rope length servo control system can be readily designed by following the design procedures for the crane position servo control system (30). The hoisting motors are sometimes controlled by velocity servo controllers instead of the torque servo controllers. Then the design method proposed by Lee et al. (1997) can be readily applied. 3.3.2 Gain Scheduling for Slowly Varying Rope Length. The velocity and position servo control gains are determined independently of the rope length. However, the angle gains K, K, and Kj need to be adjusted to changes in rope length. In this study, a gain scheduling method is adopted to cope with slowly varying rope length. That is, for each selected rope length I, the optimum values of K^, K, and K^ are determined from the root locus of the overall control system, and then the angle gain functions K^l), Kil), and K^l) are obtained from the optimum values using the curve fitting technique. They are functions of the rope length /; hence they are used in real-time control according to real-time rope length. 3.4 Stability Analysis for Slowly Varying Rope Length. The rope length is independently controlled since the load hoisting dynamics (19) is independent of crane motion and load swing. As a result, the crane control system is stable if the overall control system shown in Fig. 4 is stable for slowly varying rope length. 474 / Vol. 120, DECEMBER 1998 Transactions of the ASME Downloaded 08 Jun 2012 to 194.27.128.8. Redistribution subject to ASME license or copyright; see http://www.asme.org/terms/Terms_Use.cfm When X,. = D = 0, the overall control system in Fig. 4 can be represented by the following state space form: X = A{t)x, (41) where x is the n X 1 state vector and A(t) is the n X n system matrix; n is the number of the closed-loop poles of the overall control system. In this study, the angle gain functions K^il), K(l), and K^il) are used in real-time control to cope with slowly varying rope length. Then, for each time t a 0, the system matrix A(t) has n stable eigenvalues (the closed loop poles) having optimum damping. The system matrix A(t) is a function of the rope length /; accordingly, A{t) is slowly varying when / is slowly varying. When |/| and hence ||A(0||, a norm of A( 0, are sufficiently small, it can be proven by using Lyapunov stability theorem that the closed-loop system (41) is asymptotically stable and that its stability bound can be determined as a function of the eigenvalues of A(t) and A(t) (Rosenbrock, 1963 and Desoer, 1969). 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 16 20 lime (sec) actual X - desired x . ...2cluaLi!._:.-,: desired y "awaal r ' desired i 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 time (sec) ' / \ ' 2 4 6 8 10 12 U 16 18 20 time (sec) : ; h ^ f :u ' \\ y 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 lime (sec) Fi g. 7 Experi mental results wi th small initial l oad swi ng 4 Experimental Results Figure 6 shows the schematic diagram of a three-dimensional prototype overhead crane system built for this study, where the girder moves in the X (travel) direction, the trolley on the girder moves in the Y (traverse) direction, and the hoisting motor hoists the load up and down. The prototype crane is about 5.5- meters long, 3.5 meters wide, and 2 meters high. Its maximum accelerations and velocities are 2 m/s^ and 0.5 m/s for traveling, 1.5 m/s^ and 0.3 m/s for traversing, and 1.5 m/s^ and 0.1 m/s for load hoisting, respectively. The dynamic parameters M-, = 1440 kg, D, = 480 kg/s, and K, = 480 N/V have been obtained for the X axis, and M, = 110 kg, Dy = 40 kg/s, and K, = 20 N/V have been obtained for the Y axis. The crane is driven by three AC servo motors. The traveling and traversing motors are controlled by torque servo controllers, and the hoisting motor by a velocity servo controller. Two precision position sensors have been built and installed as shown in Fig. 6. An angle sensor has been also built and in- stalled to measure the new swing angle defined in Fig. 1. The angle sensor was described in detail at the ASMEIMECE (Lee, 1997). The main controller has been integrated by using VMEbus computer systems: MC68040 CPU, analogue-to-digi- tal, digital-to-analogue, and digital input-output boards. A com- mercial real-time operating system is used for the main control- ler. A UNIX workstation is used as a development host. Ethernet Main Controller iMainiiiiiBilsilB Unix System Hoisting Motor & Sensor VMEbus System H MC68040 Torque & Velocity References Girder X-Position Sensor Fig. 6 Schiematic di agram of a three-di mensi onal prototype crane system The proposed decoupled control scheme has been applied to the control of simultaneous traveling, traversing, and hoisting motions of the crane for performance evaluation. The overall control system shown in Fig. 4 was independently applied to each of the traveling and traversing controls with the same servo control gains {K = 24.0, Kp = 1.6, and K, = 0.08) and angle gain functions {KM) = 3.5 /, K{1) = 1.5, and K^l) = 0.6) for the slowly varying rope length. A velocity servo controller is adopted for the hoisting motor; hence the position servo control law proposed by Lee et al. (1997) was used for the hoisting (rope length) control. All the resulting control algo- rithms were implemented through the main controller with 20 ms sampling period. Figures 7 and 8 show the experimental results with small and large initial load swings, respectively. The rope length was increased from the minimum (0.7 m) to the maximum (1.5 m) at full speed while the trolley was traveling 4 meters and travers- ing 2 meters at full swing-free speed. The desired crane position trajectories were obtained by integrating the swing-free velocity profiles (Mita and Kanai, 1979) based on the average rope length. The desired rope length trajectory was independently generated. The accelerations shown in the figures were com- puted by numerically differentiating the encoder position signals and smoothened by first-order low-pass filters whose comer frequency are 10 rad/s. Note that the acceleration measurements are not used in control. Figures 7 and 8 show that the initial load swing influences the crane motions only for the first 3 seconds. The anti-swing 2 4 6 8 10 1214 16 18 20 lime (sec) 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 time (sec) 4.5 4 3.5 H n 0 -0.5 , / ' / J^- // / . ; - ; // ' 1 actual X desired x ...acluaLs!.-..;::..: desired y ' "^"actaair'"-"--" desired 1 ' 0 2 4 6 8 10 1214 1618 20 time (sec) 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 time (sec) 18 20 Fig. 8 Experi mental results wi th large initial load swi ng Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement, and Control DECEMBER 1998, Vol. 120 / 475 Downloaded 08 Jun 2012 to 194.27.128.8. Redistribution subject to ASME license or copyright; see http://www.asme.org/terms/Terms_Use.cfm controller Kg(s) tries to minimize the load swing and hence the crane accelerations; consequently, the crane follows the desired trajectories with about 1-second lags for the traveling and tra- versing motions. The hoisting (rope length) control is, however, independent of the load swing and crane motion. The steady state position errors are all zero and the load swing disappears about 2 seconds after the crane reaches the desired positions. These results are in good agreement with the closed-loop trans- fer functions (33) - (36) whose poles have sufficient damping. For detailed crane motions, see the velocities and accelerations of the crane in the figures. The performance of the proposed control scheme is excellent for the practical case of simultane- ous traveling, traversing, and slow hoisting motions. Extra experiments have been performed under various condi- tions. The control performance has not been influenced by the load mass (from 5 kg to 30 kg) thanks to the load mass precom- pensator (23). The control scheme has maintained the stability and performance even with a 15 deg initial load swing. Special attentions have been paid to the experiments with various hoisting speeds and patterns, and it has been found that the gain scheduling method works fine with wide ranges of hoisting speeds and patterns. 5 Conclusion In this study, a new nonlinear dynamic model for three-di- mensional overhead cranes has been derived based on a new two-degree-of-freedom swing angle definition. The new dy- namic model is equivalent to that of a three-link flexible robot having the first flexible mode. Hence the control laws for flexi- ble-link robots can be readily applied to the control of three- dimensional overhead cranes. When the new dynamic model is linearized, it becomes decoupled and symmetric with respect to the traveling and tra- versing motions of the crane, that is, the control of a three- dimensional overhead crane is transformed into that of two two- dimensional overhead cranes. From this result, a new decoupled control law has been designed for a three-dimensional overhead crane by using the loop shaping, root locus, and gain scheduling methods. The theoretical and experimental results show that the pro- posed control scheme guarantees both rapid damping of load swing and accurate control of crane position and rope length with excellent transient responses for the practical case of simul- taneous traveling, traversing, and slow hoisting motions. The performance of the proposed control scheme is little affected by the load mass, initial load swings, and slow hoisting motion. Accordingly, the new dynamic models and control scheme pro- posed in this study can be readily used for industrial applica- tions. Acknowledgments This study was funded by POSCO while the author was in RIST. This support is gratefully acknowledged. 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