Linear Model Reference Control for Swing-Free Transport

This correspondence considers the problem of reduced vibrational motion of a transport system that consists of a suspended object transported by an overhead crane. The transport system contains uncertain parameters. A linear control law is developed that forces the states of the transport system to follow the states of a reference model that represents the ideal response of the controlled system. Under certain assumptions, this controller guarantees that all solutions are uniformly ultimately bounded. The tracking error does not asymptotically decrease to zero; instead the error is bounded and furthermore, the error bound can be made arbitrarily small. A more general control law is proposed and computer simulation results are included to illustrate the application of theory developed in the paper to reduce vibrational motion of the transport system