Wire rope tension control of hoisting systems using a robust nonlinear adaptive backstepping control scheme

Zhen-Cai Zhu; Xiang Li; Gang Shen; Wei-Dong Zhu

doi:10.1016/j.isatra.2017.11.007

Wire rope tension control of hoisting systems using a robust nonlinear adaptive backstepping control scheme

ISA Trans. 2018 Jan:72:256-272. doi: 10.1016/j.isatra.2017.11.007. Epub 2017 Nov 27.

Authors

Zhen-Cai Zhu¹, Xiang Li², Gang Shen¹, Wei-Dong Zhu³

Affiliations

¹ School of Mechatronic Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China; Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Mine Mechanical and Electrical Equipment, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China.
² School of Mechatronic Engineering, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China; Jiangsu Key Laboratory of Mine Mechanical and Electrical Equipment, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China. Electronic address: lixiang_nn@126.com.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA.

PMID: 29173939
DOI: 10.1016/j.isatra.2017.11.007

Abstract

This paper concerns wire rope tension control of a double-rope winding hoisting system (DRWHS), which consists of a hoisting system employed to realize a transportation function and an electro-hydraulic servo system utilized to adjust wire rope tensions. A dynamic model of the DRWHS is developed in which parameter uncertainties and external disturbances are considered. A comparison between simulation results using the dynamic model and experimental results using a double-rope winding hoisting experimental system is given in order to demonstrate accuracy of the dynamic model. In order to improve the wire rope tension coordination control performance of the DRWHS, a robust nonlinear adaptive backstepping controller (RNABC) combined with a nonlinear disturbance observer (NDO) is proposed. Main features of the proposed combined controller are: (1) using the RNABC to adjust wire rope tensions with consideration of parameter uncertainties, whose parameters are designed online by adaptive laws derived from Lyapunov stability theory to guarantee the control performance and stability of the closed-loop system; and (2) introducing the NDO to deal with uncertain external disturbances. In order to demonstrate feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed controller, experimental studies have been conducted on the DRWHS controlled by an xPC rapid prototyping system. Experimental results verify that the proposed controller exhibits excellent performance on wire rope tension coordination control compared with a conventional proportional-integral (PI) controller and adaptive backstepping controller.

Keywords: Disturbance observer; Double-rope winding hoisting system; External disturbances; Parameter uncertainties; Robust nonlinear adaptive backstepping controller.