Payload oscillation control of tower crane using smooth command input

Abstract

This paper presents a smooth command (SC) input shaper for suppressing payload oscillations in rest-to-rest simultaneous radial and tangential motions of a tower crane. The radial and tangential acceleration profiles of the compound motions are represented by multi-sine wave functions with independent and variable maneuvering time. The proposed SC is designed using a nonlinear mathematical model of the tower crane while the parameters of the acceleration profiles and maneuvering times were optimized using a particle swarm algorithm (PSO). The simulated results were verified experimentally on a laboratory scale tower crane. The results confirm that the proposed SC input effectively canceled residual vibrations of the payload compound motions with a time length comparable to zero vibrations (ZV) shaper. Moreover, sensitivity analysis to variations in cable length reveals that the proposed command input is robust over a wide range of cable lengths.