Robust Control of Single-Mast Stacker Cranes

The stacker cranes in automated storage/retrieval systems (AS/RS) of warehouses often have very high dynamical loads.These dynamical loads may generate harmful mast vibrations in the frame structure of stacker cranes which can reduce the stability and positioning accuracy of these machines.The aim of this paper is to develop controller design methods which have proper reference signal tracking and mast-vibration attenuation properties.First, the dynamic modeling of single-mast stacker cranes by means of multibody modeling approach is summarized.Based on this modeling technique a H∞ and a robust control design method are proposed for achieving the appointed purposes.The analyses of the controlled systems are carried out by time domain simulations.