C.R.A.W.LAB

Reducing Oscillation of Ship-Mounted Cranes Used for ASV Retrieval

This project began as a partnership with C & C Technologies and has grown to include Autonomous Surface Vehicles, LLC, leaders the utilization of Autonomous Surface Vehicles (ASVs) for hydrographic surveying industry whose customers include the oil and gas industry, the telecommunications industry, and the U.S. government. ASVs are often launched and retrieved from larger ocean-going vessels using a crane-based system. However, both the efficiency and safety of the launch-and-retrieval system are limited by the oscillation induced by a combination of the crane’s intended motion and disturbances resulting from ocean and weather conditions.

The primary objective of this project is the advancement of crane-control techniques to include the reduction of oscillation resulting from the large disturbances common to the ship-mounted ASV launch-and-retrieval system. This will enable safer and more efficient ASV operations. Broader impacts of this work include improvements to many shipboard crane operations, where large amplitude external disturbances are common, and reduced Health, Safety, and Environmental (HSE) exposure from cranes mounted on drilling and oil-production platforms, where cranes are used to load and unload equipment and supplies.

Publications

1. R. Schmidt, M. Begneaud, and J. Vaughan, “Tracking of a target payload via a combination of input shaping, zero phase error tracking control, and fuzzy logic,” in Dynamic Systems and Control Conference, vol. 2, (Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA), October 12–14 2016.
2. R. Schmidt, N. Barry, and J. Vaughan, “Tracking of a target payload via a combination of input shaping and feedback control,” in 12th IFAC Workshop on Time Delay Systems, (Ann Arbor, Michigan), June 28-30 2015.