DESIGN OF A CASCADE CONTROLLER FOR A FLEXIBLE SPRAY BOOM

Abstract Longitudinal accelerations and yawning angular accelerations of a tractor induce horizontal flexible spray boom deformations which cannot be reduced sufficiently by simple structural adaptations. An electro-hydraulic control system has therefore been developed in order to attenuate the negative effect of longitudinal tractor accelerations on a spray boom. The linear quadratic Gaussian theory with loop transfer recovery has been used to design the compensator. Four different variants of the compensator are implemented in an experimental set-up to test the performance and the robustness of the feedback system and to investigate the applicability of the electro-hydraulic devices in active vibration control.