Bucket Wheel Reclaimer modeling as a robotic arm

Bucket wheel reclaimer (BWR) has been widely used for stacking/reclaiming bulk materials (i.e. iron ore) onto/from stockpiles in mining industry. Generally speaking, current BWRs are manually operated, remotely operated, or automated to simply follow predefined trajectory patterns. BWRs are very large in size, heavy in weight, expensive in price and slow in motion. It is commonly agreed in the industry that the current stacking/reclaiming efficiency can be largely improved leading to huge amount of savings in dollar terms. However, as BWRs are always heavily engaged in production and can not be easily spared for the required study and development for efficiency improvement, a close to real BWR model would be highly desirable and greatly beneficial to carry out necessary studies and preparations. This paper presents the work carried out for the modelling of a typical BWR using Matlab/Simulink including not only the kinematics and dynamics of a typical BWR but also the friction forces from its joints, limitation of its encoder resolutions, and random disturbances to cover the un-modelled dynamics. Besides, a hybrid controller, which consists of a fuzzy logic controller on top of a model based portion, is developed to control the motion of the BWR. Simulations are conducted, and the results demonstrate satisfactory performance and prove the developed model can be used for further studies to improve relevant production efficiencies.