Sliding-Mode Antisway Control of an Offshore Container Crane

In this paper, a sliding-mode control for an offshore container crane is discussed. The offshore container crane is used to load/unload containers between a huge container ship (called the “mother ship”) and a smaller ship (called the “mobile harbor”), on which the crane is installed. The purpose of the mobile harbor is to load/unload containers in the open sea and transport them to shallower water where they can be offloaded at existing conventional ports, thereby obviating the need for expansive and expensive new facilities. The load/unload control objective is to suppress the pendulum motion (i.e., “sway”) of the load in the presence of the wave- and wind-induced movements (heave, roll, and pitch) of the mobile harbor. A new mechanism for lateral sway control, therefore, is proposed as well. A sliding surface is designed in such a way that the longitudinal sway of the load is incorporated with the trolley dynamics. The asymptotic stability of the closed-loop system is guaranteed by a control law derived for the purpose. The proposed new mechanism can suppress lateral sway, which functionality is not possible with conventional cranes. Simulation results are provided.