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An Energy-based Nonlinear Coupling Control for Offshore Ship-mounted Cranes

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Abstract

This paper proposes a novel nonlinear energy-based coupling control for an underactuated offshore ship-mounted crane, which guarantees both precise trolley positioning and payload swing suppressing performances under external sea wave disturbance. In addition to having such typical nonlinear underactuated property, as it is well known, an offshore ship-mounted crane also suffers from much unexpected persistent disturbances induced by sea waves or currents, which, essentially different from an overhead crane fixed on land, cause much difficulty in modeling and controller design. Inspired by the desire to achieve appropriate control performance against those challenging factors, in this paper, through carefully analyzing the inherent mechanism of the nonlinear dynamics, we first construct a new composite signal to enhance the coupling behavior of the trolley motion as well as the payload swing in the presence of ship′s roll motion disturbance. Based on which, an energy-based coupling control law is presented to achieve asymptotic stability of the crane control system′s equilibrium point. Without any linearization of the complex nonlinear dynamics, unlike traditional feedback controllers, the proposed control law takes a much simpler structure independent of the system parameters. To support the theoretical derivations and to further verify the actual control performance, Lyapunov-based mathematical analysis as well as numerical simulation/experimental results are carried out, which clarify the feasibility and superior performance of the proposed method over complicated disturbances.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 11372144), National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars of China (No. 61325017), and National Science Foundation of Tianjin.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Robotics and Automatic Information System, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, China

    Yu-Zhe Qian, Yong-Chun Fang & Tong Yang

  2. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Intelligent Robotics, Nankai University, Tianjin, 300350, China

    Yu-Zhe Qian, Yong-Chun Fang & Tong Yang

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  1. Yu-Zhe Qian
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  2. Yong-Chun Fang
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Correspondence to Yong-Chun Fang.

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Recommended by Associate Editor Yuan-Qing Xia

Yu-Zhe Qian received the B. Sc. degree in automation from Nankai University, China in 2014. She is currently a Ph. D. degree candidate in control theory and control engineering at Institute of Robotics and Automatic Information System, Nankai University, China.

Her research interests include nonlinear control and control of underactuated mechatronic systems including offshore ship-mounted cranes.

Yong-Chun Fang received the B. Sc. degree in electrical engineering, and the M. Sc. degree in control theory and applications from Zhejiang University, China in 1996 and 1999, respectively, and the Ph. D. degree in electrical engineering from Clemson University, USA in 2002. From 2002 to 2003, he was a postdoctoral fellow with the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Cornell University, USA. From 2011 to 2012, he was a visiting professor at Holcombe Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Clemson University, USA. He is currently a professor with Institute of Robotics and Automatic Information System, Nankai University, China. He is a senior member of IEEE.

His research interests include nonlinear control, visual servoing, and control of underactuated systems including overhead cranes.

Tong Yang received the B. Sc. degree in automation from Nankai University, China in 2017. She is currently a master student in control science and engineering, with Institute of Robotics and Automatic Information Systems, Nankai University, China.

Her research interests include the non-linear control of underactuated systems including rotary cranes and offshore cranes.

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Qian, YZ., Fang, YC. & Yang, T. An Energy-based Nonlinear Coupling Control for Offshore Ship-mounted Cranes. Int. J. Autom. Comput. 15, 570–581 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11633-018-1134-y

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