Automatic Control of an Overhead Crane

Abstract In the iron and steel industry, the automation and computer control of each manufacturing process has been promoted in order to improve productivity. However, the automation of transportation between manufacturing pro-cesses is lagging behind. In the Fukuyama Works of N.K.K., transprotation using the overhead crane in the cold strip mill which required a large amount of labor was chased and engineers began to develop technology aimed at crane automation. Crane operation and functions were investigated in order to achieve autoration with minimum amount of remodelling of the existing cranes. Subseqeuntly, engineers decided on the development of a single cycle automatic operation system incorporating anti-swing control. One of the cranes now in use was remodelled and experiments were carried out to determine control function accuracy. It was confirmed that this model crane satisfied the required control accuracy with the possibility that labor saving and automation could hi realized.