| The main objective of this work is to design robust, fast, and practical controllers for gantry and tower cranes. The controllers are designed to transfer the load from point to point as fast as possible and, at the same time, the load swing is kept small during the transfer process and completely vanishes at the load destination.; The designed controllers are based on two approaches. In the first approach, a gain-scheduling feedback controller is designed to move the load from point to point within one oscillation cycle without inducing large swings. The settling time of the system is taken to be equal to the period of oscillation of the load. This criterion enables calculation of the controller feedback gains for varying load weight and cable length. The position references for this controller are step functions. In the second approach, the transfer process and the swing control are separated in the controller design. We use a PD-controller for tracking, while the anti-swing controller is designed using three different methods: (a) a classical PD controller, (b) two controllers based on a delayed-feedback technique, and (c) a fuzzy logic controller that maps the delayed-feedback controller performance.; To validate the designed controllers, an experimental setup was built.; With friction compensation, the experimental results are in good agreement with the computer simulations. The gain-scheduling controllers transfer the load smoothly without inducing an overshoot in the trolley position. Moreover, the load can be transferred in a time near to the optimal tune with small swing angles during tire transfer process. With full-state feedback, the crane can reach any position in the working environment without exceeding the system power capability by controlling the forward gain in the feedback loop. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)... |
