Novel Control Method for Overhead Crane's Load Stability

Nowadays, cranes are widely employed in many fields of the industry and its utilization represents a large financial influence. The investment on cranes, for example, on docks are mainly associated with the time required for the positioning of the cargos. The objective in this experiment was to develop the control of a system to minimize the stabilization time of a load swinging due to crane movement using a controller created from a Lyapunov function. A metal structure was used with a pendulum, attached to a linear motor. After the controller was designed and implemented a series of experiments were done in varied conditions of mass and signal input. The system can be moved at high speed with the joystick and a trigger is pressed to quickly stabilize the pendulum. This, compared to the traditional methods of controlling this payload oscillation has made evident that the control method associated to the use of a joystick can reduce the loading time and also eliminate the need of a highly experienced driver operating the crane.