Ho-Hoon Lee

Department of Mechanical Engineering,

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
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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
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< 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
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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
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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
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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. The author
expresses his deep appreciation to Mr. Sung-Kun Cho at RIST
for assisting the author with the real-time control experiments
for this study.
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