Nonlinear Energy-Based Regulation Control of Three-Dimensional Overhead Cranes

To increase the transportation efficiency and ensure the safety of the crane system, the trolley/bridge is required to be driven to reach different preset destinations without retuning control gains of the controller, while the maximum payload swing amplitudes need to be similar for different transportation processes of different distances. Motivated by the desire to achieve these objectives, based on the energy shaping methodology and passivity-based control (PBC), an enhanced coupling control method is derived for three-dimensional (3-D) underactuated overhead cranes. Specifically, on the basis of the energy shaping methodology and PBC, a constructive storage function is constructed by solving partial differential equations. Then, a novel enhanced coupling control scheme enforcing the dissipation inequality with respect to the constructed storage function is investigated straightforwardly, and the corresponding stability analysis is proven by Lyapunov techniques and LaSalle's invariance theorem. Finally, the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by digital simulations and experimental tests. Note to Practitioners-This paper is motivated by the desire to increase the working efficiency and ensure the safety of the crane system. The control method proposed here can be applied to 3-D overhead crane systems. In practical applications, when the transportation distance changes (becomes longer), the control parameters of most existing control methods should be retuned, otherwise, the closed system may induce larger payload swing, which is dangerous and unexpected. To deal with this issue, we aim to propose a nonlinear control method for 3-D overhead cranes with no need to retune control parameters when the transportation distance changes. In addition, the proposed control method can guarantee the payload swing is similar for different transportation processes of different distances. In the future, we will try to apply this method to industrial cranes to improve the throughput.