LMI-based design of an I-PD+PD type LPV state feedback controller for a gantry crane

In this paper, an alternative gain-scheduled PID tuning procedure is proposed for gantry crane control systems. In order to avoid excessive overshoot and aggressive control action due to the proportional kick and/or derivative kick effects, an I-PD+PD type control law is considered. The scheduling parameter is considered the cable length due to the payload lifting and lowering movements. A linear parameter-varying (LPV) gantry crane model is constructed to enable gain-scheduled controller design with a linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) framework. Based on the LPV model, a convex optimization problem is formulized to minimize L₂ gain under regional pole location constraints. Then, a fixed gain L₂ gain state feedback I-PD+PD type controller and a conventional pole placement state feedback I-PD+PD controller are designed to investigate the efficiency of the proposed controller. A pole placement controller is tuned to minimize the very common ITAE (integral of time multiplied by absolute error) performance index. Simulation results show that the proposed controller has superior tracking performance under time-varying cable length, when compared with nominal fixed gain controllers.