Safe Tumbling of Heavy Objects Using a Two-Cable Crane
Name
ONeill-croneill-SM-meche-2021-thesis.pdf
Description
Thesis PDF
Size
2.84 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
e5beb1cdc29b6d19bc2baaf96102fe76
Author(s)
O'Neill, Cormac
Advisor(s)
Asada, Haruhiko Harry
Date Issued
June 2021
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
In heavy industries, large, heavy objects must be tumbled to access features on their bottoms and sides for assembly and maintenance. Traditional manual operations using a single-cable crane are high-risk, and difficult for less experienced workers. Automating the tumbling process is made challenging due to the presence of kinematic and static singularities which are shown to occur when a single-cable crane loses control over the block being tumbled. Here, an autonomous method for safely tumbling a heavy block sitting on a surface using a two-cable crane is presented. Two winches controlling a pair of cables on a crane are coordinated in such a way that a) the block cannot slip on the floor, b) the block is not lifted into the air, and c) the block is under quasi-static balanced control at all times. A control algorithm for coordinating the two winches is developed for safely tumbling a block without slipping or becoming airborne as well as for eliminating the effect of singularities. A small-scale prototype is developed and the control algorithm is implemented and evaluated experimentally.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering
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