Residual Vibration Suppression of Crane Movement by Input Shaping: Experimental Investigation and Finite Element Dynamics Simulations

Cranes play important roles for transferring a payload. Motion induced swings during crane maneuver make it difficult to move the payload rapidly with high positioning accuracy and could possibly cause safety concern in hazardous environments. Input shaping provides an effective method of suppressing the payload swings and residual vibrations during a rapid maneuver. However, the traditional designs of input shapers have all been based on rigid pendulum dynamics, which may not be realistic for many applications. In this paper, we integrate finite element dynamic analysis with shaper design to suppress swing and vibrations for crane-based transportation. A pendulum mounted on a two-axis liner servomotor is designed and fabricated to serve as a platform to simulate the crane motion with a payload. Zero Vibration (ZV) and Zero Vibration and Derivative (ZVD) shapers are used. Robustness of these shapers is investigated through both simulations and experiments. The results demonstrate that the input shaping methods allow the test system moving smoothly and rapidly to the destination with only a small swing and almost no residual vibration. Finally, the cable compliance is considered and multiple-mode shaping schemes are designed based on finite element analysis. The simulation results indicate that the finite element simulation can be a powerful tool for analyzing the dynamics for designing shapers in more realistic and complicated mechanical systems.