• Journal of Mechanical Science and Technology
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• v.18 no.7
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• pp.1062-1073
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• 2004

We describe a looper controller design for a hot strip finishing mill in steel plants. The main function of the looper system is to balance the mass flow of the strip by accumulating material in the middle of the stands. Another function is to control the strip tension which influences the width of the strip. To ensure strip quality, it is very important to control the tension of the hot strip finishing mill. However, because there is a mutual interaction between the looper angle and the strip tension, it is difficult to control the looper system. Previous researches examined only the operation of a single stand. But it is not sufficient to examine the operation and effect of whole stands because the operation is wholly interdependent. In this paper, we present a full model of the hot strip finishing mill in order to more effectively control strip tension. We propose several control methods for the full-stand hot strip finishing mill, denoted as conventional PI, PI with cross gain, and coefficient diagram method (CDM) PID control. In the real plants, there are some problems by using higher order controllers such as LQ, LQG and H$\_$$\infty$/. By comparison, the PID controller is very simple and easy to apply to all real plants. To that end, we present our findings on PID controls and their potential use in the hot strip finishing mill.

• Journal of Ocean Engineering and Technology
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.90-96
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• 2008

In general, the swing motions of a crane are controlled and suppressed by controlling the trolley motion. In many of our previous studies, we suggested a new type of anti-sway control system for a crane. In this proposed control system, a small auxiliary mass (moving-mass) is installed on the spreader and moving this auxiliary mass controls tire swing motion. The actuator reaction against the auxiliary mass applies inertial control forces to the container in order to reduce the swing motion in the desired manner. However, measuring systems based on a laser sensor or other means are not veryuseful in real-worldapplications. So, in this paper, animage sensor is used to measure the motions of the spreader and the measured data are fed back to the controller in real time. The applied image processing technique is a kind of robust template matching method called Vector Code Correlation (VCC), which was devised to consider real environmental conditions. The H $\infty$ based control technique is applied to suppress the swing motion of the crane. Experimental results showed that the proposed measurement and control system based on an image sensor is useful and robust to disturbances.