Nonparametric adaptive payload tracking for an offshore crane

A nonparametric adaptive crane control system is proposed where the crane payload tracks a desired trajectory with feedback from the payload position. The payload motion is controlled with the position of the crane tip using partial feedback linearization. This is made possible by introducing a novel model structure given in Cartesian coordinates. This Cartesian model structure makes it possible to implement a nonparametric adaptive controller which cancels disturbances by approximating the effects of unknown disturbance forces and structurally unknown dynamics in a reproducing kernel Hilbert space (RKHS). It is shown that the nonparametric adaptive controller leads to uniformly ultimately bounded errors in the presence of unknown forces and unmodeled dynamics. Moreover, it is shown that the Cartesian formulation has certain advantages in payload tracking control also in the non-adaptive case. The performance of the nonparametric adaptive controller is validated in simulation and experiments with good results.