Modeling and Control of a Rotary Crane

In this paper we first derive a dynamical model for the control of a rotary crane, which makes three kinds of motion (rotation, load hoisting, and boom hoisting) simultaneously. The goal is to transfer a load to a desired place in such a way that at the end of transfer the swing of the load decays as quickly as possible. We first apply an open-loop control input to the system such that the state of the system can be transferred to a neighborhood of the equilibrium state. Then we apply a feedback control signal so that the state of the system approaches the equilibrium state as quickly as possible. The results of computer simulation prove that the open-loop plus feedback control scheme works well.