Modeling and optimal control of automated trolleys

Automated trolleys have been developed to meet the needs of material handling in industries. The velocity of automated trolleys is regulated by an S-shaped (or trapezoid-shaped) acceleration and deceleration profile. In consequence of the velocity profile, the control system of automated trolleys is nonlinear and open-looped. In order to linearize the control system, we use a second order dynamic element to replace the acceleration and declaration curve in practice, and design an optimal controller under the quadratic cost function. Performance of the proposed approach is also compared to the conventional method. The simulation shows a better dynamic performance of the developed control system.