ARTICLE IN PRESS JID: FI [m1+;November 15, 2017;19:6] Available online at www.sciencedirect.com Journal of the Franklin Institute 000 (2017) 1–25 www.elsevier.com/locate/jfranklin 3D cooperative control of tower cranes using robust adaptive techniques Anh Tuan Le a,∗ , Soon-Geul Lee b,∗ a Department of Automotive Engineering, Vietnam Maritime University, Hai Phong, Vietnam b Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kyung Hee University, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do 446-701, Republic of Korea Received 4 December 2016; received in revised form 12 September 2017; accepted 26 October 2017 Available online xxx Abstract An adaptive robust controller that simultaneously rotates the tower and moves the trolley is proposed for a tower crane. The robust behavior of the controller is derived through the sliding mode technique, and its adaptive performance is obtained based on the adaptive model-reference approach. The con- troller operated well regardless of the significant variation of system parameters, internal noises, and external disturbances. Specifically, the controller did not require a priori knowledge of cargo mass and friction factors because an adaptation mechanism is integrated to estimate system parameters. Emulating experimental results showed that the proposed controller consistently stabilized all system responses. © 2017 The Franklin Institute. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction A tower crane is a handling machine essentially used to lift and transfer construction ma- terials in building construction. Normally, the lifting height of a tower crane varies according to building height. The cargo handling comprises several phases: lifting the payload, mov- ing the trolley, rotating the tower, and lowering the payload. These phases can be combined and simultaneously performed. To increase productivity, modern tower cranes are frequently required to operate at high-speeds which easily increases payload swings. In addition, tower cranes that operate outdoors with high and strong winds influence the payload and crane ∗ Co-corresponding authors. E-mail addresses: tuanla.ck@vimaru.edu.vn (A.T. Le), sglee@khu.ac.kr (S.-G. Lee). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfranklin.2017.10.026 0016-0032/© 2017 The Franklin Institute. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Please cite this article as: A.T. Le, S.-G. Lee, 3D cooperative control of tower cranes using robust adaptive techniques, Journal of the Franklin Institute (2017), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jfranklin.2017.10.026