Robust liquid container transfer control for complete sloshing suppression

Abstract

The paper is concerned with the advanced control of liquid container transfer, with special consideration given to the suppression of sloshing (liquid vibration) while maintaining a high speed of transfer for the container. In order to construct a high speed transfer system for a liquid container that satisfies the reduction of endpoint residual vibration and has a robustness to change in the static liquid level, a suitable nominal model was adopted and an appropriate reference trajectory was determined by the optimization method of Fletcher and Reeves (1964). Based on the above command inputs and using a suitable nominal model, an H/sup /spl infin// feedback control system was applied to this process, and its effectiveness is shown through simulations and experiments. Furthermore, an active control method that takes into account the rotational motion of the container in addition to the linear transfer motion is presented, which can achieve complete suppression of sloshing during the whole transfer process.