The development of an autonomous mobile overhead crane system for the liquid tank transfer

This paper presents a method to establish the three-dimensional (3-D) autonomous mobile overhead crane system which takes into account obstacle recognition and path planning by on-line and suppression of sloshing for the liquid tank transfer. The system has three different parts: a visual system, a planning system and a control system. In the visual system, ultra sonic sensor is used to renovate partial environmental map. In the planning system, proposed on-line path planning method which use an artificial potential field based on the solution of the Laplacian differential. Also, the model of sloshing is derived by using the double-pendulum model. The optimal design of shape and size for rod-tank system is discussed with this model. In the control system, feed-forward controller with terms of notch filter is used to achieve the suppression of sway for the transfer object. Finally, the validity of the proposed method is confirmed by simulation and experimental results.