Tower cranes are widely used for moving heavy goods, materials, or tools around a site. They help to speed up construction and save time and manpower in a process. However, a significant problem of tower cranes is oscillatory behavior, which can adversely impact safety and delivery accuracy. This paper proposes sliding mode control (SMC) combined with Input Shaping (IS) for controlling tower cranes. Sliding mode control itself can be used to control a tower crane to obtain position precision and vibration suppression. However, the selection of controller parameters may be difficult and the required control effort is high. In addition, chattering may occur. With the combination of input shaping, these problems can be overcome. The control parameter range is extended and the required control effort is reduced when input shaping is applied. In addition, input shaping also helps to reduce load vibration and chattering. Simulations in Matlab-Simulink have been done and the simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm.
