Industrial Application of Open-Loop Anti-Sway Control for Bridge Crane Horizontal Motion Drive

Bridge or overhead cranes are widespread in industrial halls, warehouses, shipyards, ports, power plants, and mining, where they provide quick and safe transport of heavy loads. Load sway occurs in the event of horizontal motion in these cranes, which hinders dynamic performance and may cause damage to objects in the direct vicinity of the load as well as the load itself. The paper analyses the sway of the load analytically on a simplified model, to determine the dependence of the rope length and the period of oscillation of the load. The open-loop sway control of the crane's horizontal motion is first tested on a simulation model, then applied to a real industrial crane with 25 t loading capability. The experimental results confirm the viability of the proposed open-loop control method in reducing the load sway angle. The manipulation of the load without sway oscillations significantly reduces the load manipulation time with the crane.