Stability analysis of pump-controlled dual-winch system with PI controller

As for the synchronization control of dual winches of large crawler cranes, a master-slave PI control algorithm with the hook's inclination as feedback signal is proposed and analyzed. The transfer function of the pump-controlled dual-winch system is obtained by building the mathematical model and linearizing it around the working point and thus the stability can be analyzed. The way to determine the parameters of PI controller is proposed via frequency response method. The research indicates that the proposed control algorithm is able to guarantee the steady-state error to be zero and that the stability of the whole system depends on the stability of the hydraulic subsystem and the actuator subsystem. Specifically, the stability of the hydraulic system can be ensured by increasing leakage and the stability of the actuator can be improved through PI controller.