Title: Active boom stabiliser of wheel loaders using optimum fuzzy controller

Authors: Abdulaziz Al-Fadhli; Emad Khorshid

Addresses: Automotive and Marine Engineering Technology Department, Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET), P.O. Box 42325, Shuwaikh 70654, Kuwait ' Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Kuwait University, P.O. Box 5969, Safat 13060, Kuwait

Abstract: Wheel loaders are exposed to several disturbances while travelling from one location to another for material loading and unloading. Damping the introduced vibration disturbances on boom and bucket will increase the load handling efficiency and reduce working hazards. Therefore, this study presents a novel active boom control system with an optimised fuzzy logic controller (FLC) to attenuate boom oscillation. For cost-effective purposes, the fuzzy boom active controller utilises the existing boom lifting electro-hydraulic component to attenuate boom oscillation without exceeding the actuator working limits. The designed FLC applies measurable and accessible system states as input variables while its structure, in terms of rule base and scaling factors, are optimised using particle swarm optimisation (PSO). Numerical results showed that the proposed active fuzzy logic system effectively attenuates boom oscillations and bucket vertical vibrations compared to active systems with a proportional-integral-derivative controller (PID) and passive system. Test cases for several types of road disturbances and different driving speeds showed the proposed FLC controller's superior performance.

Keywords: wheel loaders; active damping; numerical simulation; fuzzy controller; design optimisations; mathematical modelling.

DOI: 10.1504/IJHVS.2022.123228

International Journal of Heavy Vehicle Systems, 2022 Vol.29 No.1, pp.13 - 32

Received: 15 Jul 2020
Accepted: 29 Nov 2020
Published online: 06 Jun 2022 *

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