Adaptive Tracking Control for an Overhead Crane System

This paper proposes an adaptive control method for an underactuated overhead crane system. To improve the transferring efficiency and enhance the security of the crane system, the trolley is required to reach the desired position as fast as possible, while the swing of payload needs to be within an acceptable domain. To achieve these objectives, a novel two-step design strategy consisting of a trajectory planning stage and an adaptive tracking control design stage, is proposed to attack such an underactuated system as overhead crane. In the first step this paper proposes a new S curve as the desired trajectory for trolley tracking, and in the second step, it constructs an adaptive control law to make the trolley track the planned trajectory. As shown by Lyapunov Techniques, the proposed adaptive controller guarantees an asymptotical tracking result even in the presence of uncertainties including system parameters and various disturbances. Simulation results demonstrate that the new S trajectory and the tracking controller achieves a superior performance for the underactuated cranes.