Vibration suppression of sprayer boom structure using active torque control and iterative learning. Part I: Modelling and control via simulation

Abstract

Since one of the influential factors that affects the spray distribution pattern is the spray boom movements which are mostly induced by soil unevenness, most of the recent sprayers are equipped with suspensions for improving the uniformity of spray application in the field. This paper investigates the suitability of improving the sprayer suspension dynamics performance by employing a robust intelligent control scheme, namely active torque control (ATC) based method in reducing the undesired vibration through a simulation study. The ATC scheme with a self-tuning fuzzy proportional-integral-derivative (PID) (ATC-STF-PID) controller was first designed and simulated. Then an artificial intelligence (AI) method using iterative learning (IL) was embedded and implemented into the ATC loop to compute the estimated inertial parameter of the system; this scheme is known as ATCAIL. Thereafter, the performance of the ATCAIL scheme is later compared to the ATC with artificial neural network (ATCANN), ATC-STF-PID and STF-PID controllers in time and frequency domains. The results of simulation work affirm that ATC-based schemes can improve the system performance of the active rolling suspension in relation to roll vibration suppression. In other words, both the ATCAIL and ATCANN schemes show better responses in comparison to the ATC-STF-PID controller scheme. The results also imply that the ATCAIL scheme is indeed effective in suppressing the vibration of a sprayer boom structure.