Linear Quadratic Gaussian (LQG) for stability control of single payload overhead crane system

Crane is a tool used to transport heavy payload or hazardous materials from one place to another in an industry. Crane movement is susceptible to excessive swing angle of payload, which can affect positioning accuracy, quality, effectiveness, and safety of operations. Problems in crane systems involve the ability to reduce swing angle of payload and move it to the desired position fastly. In this paper, an LQG control design is implemented on a single payload overhead crane system to control trolley position and swing angle. The simulation results show that LQR produces system response better than LQG for swing angle amplitude. Although the simulation results show the performance of LQR better than LQG but in implementation, LQG is wider and cheaper than LQR because it can be applied to systems with only a few state measurements so that it can reduce the needed for measurement sensors that must be installed on the system, in contrast to LQR which must need full state measurements. To get full state measurement requires many sensors because each state must be installed with a measurement sensor so that the cost will be more expensive and also constrained by the limitations of some real systems that not all states are possible to measure. The system disturbance represents the amount of wind energy that affects the overhead crane system when operates. The selection value of system disturbance 10-3 causes LQG to give satisfactory results, where the selection of value is based on the condition that the overhead crane system generally operates indoors so that the amount of wind energy that affects the system is small.