A sound-based measurement of sway angle for anti-sway control of overhead crane

Abstract

For anti-swing control of overhead crane, a deflection angle must be estimated. However, it is difficult to estimate deflection angles with a contact sensor such as rotary encoder. Therefore, we show a non-contact measurement method for the deflection angles by using two microphones. This method is based on the sound source location in a human with two ears. The method employs a time delay of arrival (TDOA) of acoustic signals which are picked up by the two microphones. Also, we show an algorithm to obtain the angle from the TDOA by using the Newton’s method. Finally, we show experimental results to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.