OO Modelling and Control of a Laboratory Crane for the Purpose of Control Education

Abstract

The paper deals with modelling, simulation and control of a laboratory crane for the purpose of control education. There were many similar activities in the past with realisations in causal modelling e.g. Matlab-Simulink. However we wanted to model and control the set-up also in the OO and multi-domain environment Dymola-Modelica using library components instead of mathematical equations to show all the advantages of such approach. The combination with some causal structures to solve certain problems is also discussed. The model was properly validated with some open and closed loop experiments. These results confirm the applicability of the model and the efficiency of the mentioned approach in modern control engineering courses.