An Anti-Swing and Positioning Controller for Overhead Cranes Based on Multi-Sliding Mode Method

Overhead cranes are essentially a kind of complex underactuated nonlinear mechanical systems, and it is a challenge to design an anti-swing controller for overhead cranes, hence, many people design controllers of overhead cranes ignoring the changing of the rope length and other parameters. In this study, we propose a multi-sliding mode controller to solve the problem of anti-swing and positioning controller for an overhead crane with rope length variations. This controller can provide a simultaneous trolley-position regulation, sway suppression, and load hoisting control. Also, this paper adopts a new method to decrease the chattering of the control input. Stability analysis of the proposed controller is given in the paper. The proposed controller does not rely on the accurate knowledge of overhead crane system model, and it is simple and easy to apply, and robust to disturbances. The simulation results show the good performance of the proposed controller.