Microprocessor-based adaptive control of a crane system

This paper describes the design and implementation of a microprocessor-based adaptive controller for a crane system. A description of the experimental crane system is given and the mathematical model is presented. The adaptive controller is made of a state regulator bloc and a gain tuning module. The adjustment of the regulator gains as a function of the parameters value is made by means of a modified pole placement criterion. Performance improvments of the adaptive controller over an invariant controller, advantages and residual difficulties of sucha strategy are discussed on the basis of simulated experiments.