Gantry crane control of a double-pendulum, distributed-mass load, using mechanical wave concepts

© Author(s) 2013. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.The overhead trolley of a gantry crane can be moved in two directions in the plane. The trolley is attempting to control the motion of a suspended, rigid-body, distributed mass load, supported by a hook, modelled as a lumped mass, in turn connected to the trolley by a light flexible cable. This flexible system has six degrees of freedom, four variables describing the flexible, hanging load dynamics and two (directly controlled) input variables for the trolley position. The equations of motion are developed and the crane model is verified. Then a form of wave-based control (WBC) is applied to determine what trolley motion should be used to achieve a reference motion of the load, with minimum swing during complex manoeuvres. Despite the trolley's limited control authority over the complex, flexible 3-D dynamics, WBC enables the trolley to achieve very good motion control of the load, in a simple, robust and rapid way, using little sensor information, with all measurements taken at or close to the trolley

NASA patent abstracts bibliography: A continuing bibliography. Section 2: Indexes (supplement 19)

Citations of approximately 4,000 patents and patent applications for the period May 1969 through July 1981 are indexed according to subject, invention, source, number, and accession number