Flatness-Based Nonlinear Control for Path Planning and Tracking of Sloshing Liquid Container

Abstract

The movement of the liquid inside the container, known as sloshing, is usually undesired. Thus, there is the necessity to keep under control the peaks that the liquid free-surface exhibits during motion. This paper aims at providing a solution for suppressing sloshing liquid in horizontally moving cylindrical container. After introducing equivalent discrete models based on a mass-spring-damper system introduced by the literature (non-linear model), the identification and utilization of flat outputs is presented to generate rest-to-rest trajectories in sloshing liquid systems, which is ensure the equilibrium of the sloshing height at both initial and final points. Moreover, a sliding-mode controller is described to solve the trajectory tracking problem. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through numerical simulations comparisons with a model predictive controller (MPC). This research contributes to the advancement of control techniques for anti-sloshing technology systems, enabling enhanced stability, performance, and safety in various engineering applications.