Adaptive Output-Feedback Control for Dual Overhead Crane System With Enhanced Anti-Swing Performance

In industrial practice, to improve transportation capability, there has been increasing applications for dual overhead crane systems (DOCSs). Compared with single overhead crane systems (SOCSs), DOCSs are more dangerous and difficult for human operators to manipulate due to their extremely complex system dynamics. Furthermore, more people, usually not less than three, are required to guarantee the safety of a typical transportation process of DOCS, which is not only of low efficiency but also causes a waste of human resources. Due to the above facts, it is concluded that automation of DOCS has great practical significance. To promote this process, a high-performance nonlinear controller is proposed in this article, which can better suppress the payload swing due to the incorporation of more swing-related information. Besides, only position signals are required for feedback, which is more practical for industrial application. Another highlight of the proposed method lies in the fact that it can well conquer the payload mass uncertainty with an adaption law, so that many corresponding adverse effects are eliminated. The performance of the proposed method is not only theoretically proved by rigorous mathematical analysis, but also validated with convincing hardware experiments.