dSPACE-based Real-Time Position Control of an Elastic Cable Winch System using Fuzzy PD Controller

This study presents real-time vertical position tracking of an elastic cable winch system using a fuzzy logic-based PD (FLC-PD) controller. The dynamic model of the system was used with a two-degree-of-freedom reduced form derived from a four-degree-of-freedom structure in the previous work; drum angle and load position were taken as state variables. The FLC-PD controller was designed in MATLAB/Simulink and executed in real time on the dSPACE DS1104 platform. A square wave signal was chosen as the reference trajectory. This signal allows observation of transient and steady-state behaviors of the system within the same experiment. The experiments aimed to achieve the best transient and steady-state performance while minimizing energy consumption. While the closed-loop system with a classic PD controller provided a fast response, it exhibited 19% overshoot and steady-state oscillations. On the other hand, the closed-loop system with the FLC-PD controller reduced the overshoot to 7%, achieved the lowest steady-state error with a value of 2.285 mm, and consumed the least control energy with a value of 2.418. According to the results, FLC-PD outperformed classical PD in both reference tracking and energy consumption. This result demonstrates that FLC-PD offers an energy-efficient, feasible control solution for nonlinear winch systems where cable elasticity is dominant.