Fast luffing control of flexible boom of mobile elevated work platform with uncertain control input gain

Abstract

In this paper, the dynamic model between input electric signal of hydraulic valve and boom luffing angle is established, and luffing control of flexible boom of mobile elevated work platform (MEWP) is studied. The control input gain for the luffing motion of the MEWP is extremely difficult to solve and varies with boom length, work platform load, and luffing angle. For the variable control input gain, all low-order state quantities, rigid-flexible coupling quantity, and control input are included as the “total disturbance” to be observed. Based on the third-order linear tracking differentiator and the first-order ordinary differential linear equation, an active disturbance rejection controller without control input gain is proposed. With the bandwidth-based parameter settings, the controller only needs to adjust two parameters. As a comparison, this paper analyzes in detail the proposed controllers, the fixed input gain active disturbance rejection controller and the PID controller in terms of tracking error, overshoot, setting time, tracking stability, and robustness.