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International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering 10 (2018) 95e102
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/international-journal-of-naval-architecture-and-ocean-engineering/

Cooperative control system of the floating cranes for the dual lifting
Mihee Nam a,b, Jinbeom Kim b, Jaechang Lee b, Daekyung Kim b, Donghyuk Lee c,
Jangmyung Lee a,c,*
a
Robotics Related Interdisciplinary Course, Pusan National University, Busan, 46241, South Korea
b
Central Research Institute, Samsung Heavy Industries Co., Ltd, Geoje-si, 53261, South Korea
c
Electronic Engineering, Pusan National University, Busan, 46241, South Korea
Received 1 October 2016; revised 8 March 2017; accepted 10 March 2017
Available online 12 April 2017

Abstract

This paper proposes a dual lifting and its cooperative control system with two different kinds of floating cranes. The Mega-erection and Giga-
erection in the ship building are used to handle heavier and wider blocks and modules as ships and off-shore platforms are enlarged. However,
there is no equipment to handle such Tera-blocks. In order to overcome the limit on performance of existing floating cranes, the dual lifting is
proposed in this research. In the dual lifting, two floating cranes are well-coordinated to add up the lift capabilities of both cranes without any
loss such that virtually a single crane is lifting, maneuvering and unloading. Two main constraints for the dual lifting are as follows: First, two
barges of floating cranes should be constrained as a rigid body not to cause a relative motion between two barges and main hooks of the two
cranes should be controlled as main hooks of a single crane. In order words, it is necessary to develop the cooperative control of two floating
cranes in order to sustain a center of gravity of the module and minimize the tilting angle during the lifting and unloading by the two floating
cranes. Two floating cranes are handled as a master-slave system. The master crane is able to gather information about all working conditions
and make a decision to control the individual hook speed, which communicates the slave crane by TCP/IP. The developed control system has
been embedded in the real floating crane systems and the dual lifting has been demonstrated five times at SHI shipyard in 2015. The moving
angles of the lifting module are analyzed and verified to be suitable for hoisting control. It is verified that the dual lifting can be applied for many
heavier and wider blocks and modules to shorten the construction time of ships and off-shore platforms.
Copyright © 2017 Society of Naval Architects of Korea. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the
CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Keywords: Cooperative control system; Dual lifting; Floating crane; Hoisting control; Master-slave system

1. Introduction crane is increasing, which is able to lift and unload a heavier

load than a goliath crane.
As ships and off-shore platforms are enlarged, all the A new demand for exceeding capability of existing floating
shipbuilding companies are trying to build bigger blocks, such cranes has results in a new lifting method, the dual lifting,
as Mega-blocks, Giga-blocks and Tera-blocks, to reduce the which means two floating cranes are managed as a single
dock time and to improve the productivity. In other to lift crane for lifting, maneuvering and unloading in a well-
much bigger blocks and transfer them to other place in a coordinated mode (Jung et al., 2016). To accomplish the
shipyard, a floating crane on offshore is more useful than a dual lifting successfully, it is required many related researches,
goliath crane on onshore. Therefore the necessity of a floating a dynamic interaction analysis between two floating cranes
and a load, an internal mooring analysis of side by side, a
maneuvering analysis, the cooperative control system and so
* Corresponding author. Robotics Related Interdisciplinary Course, Pusan
on (Jung et al., 2016). Among them, it is one of the most
National University, Busan, 46241, South Korea.
E-mail address: jmlee@pusan.ac.kr (J. Lee). important factors to develop the cooperative control system
Peer review under responsibility of Society of Naval Architects of Korea. which makes a load lifted and unloaded safely. If it fails either

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijnaoe.2017.03.003
2092-6782/Copyright © 2017 Society of Naval Architects of Korea. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
96 M. Nam et al. / International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering 10 (2018) 95e102

to keep a balance of a lifting module or to sustain a center of

gravity of the module constantly, a big accident such as
rotating a load or turning a load over may happen.
Many researchers have attempted to analyze the behavior of
a floating crane (Ku et al., 2014; Cha et al., 2012). A floating
crane is operating on offshore and is affected by environment
conditions, such as wind, wave current and gust. Most of the
researches have focused on the development of the dual lifting
method because every floating crane has characteristic specifi-
cations and the application method is different according to
certain circumstances (Hwang et al., 2009a,b; SHI, 2007). In
addition, a synchronized control system for the same two
floating cranes has been studied (Hwang et al., 2009a). How-
ever, most of these studies focused on the hardware design of the
synchronized control system itself.
Few studies have considered the performance of hoisting
control and a design considering the system safety for the dual
lifting. In this research, a closed-loop speed control with
interlock functions for hoisting, an alarm treatment system for Fig. 1. Configuration of a floating crane.
safety and a monitoring system during the dual lifting have
been proposed to improve the dual lifting efficiency. The some signals for driving an induction motor through a
proposed system can be used for integrating any two real Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) are generated and
floating cranes for the dual lifting, and the performance has transmitted to Variable Frequency Drive (VFD). An induction
been verified by applying five times of the dual lifting at SHI motor installed in the winch system of a main hook is driven
(Samsung Heavy Industries) shipyard in 2015. Moreover, the by the inverter drive. The driving speed and direction of an
dual lifting is approved by MWS (Marine Warranty Surveyor). induction motor depends on a step and a direction of the lever.
This paper consists of six sections, including this intro- A single line of wire ropes that are tightly and evenly wound
duction. In Section 2, the floating crane system is introduced, onto a winch drum are connected from the one winch to the
focusing on driving principle of a main hook. In Section 3, the other winch through pulleys. Such wire ropes are also used to
cooperative control of the dual lifting is introduced. In Section transmit force in mechanisms which consist of many fixed and
4 the design and development of the cooperative control sys- movable pulleys. Namely, a combination of fixed and movable
tem for the dual-lifting crane have been illustrated. Section 5 pulleys allows a heavy load to be lifted with less force.
shows the application results along with some discussions on While the main hook moves a load up and down, a weight
the experimental data. Finally, Section 6 concludes by and a moving distance of a load are measured using load pins
emphasizing the contribution of this research and some future and encoders in a real time, respectively. A load pin mounted
works to be pursued later. in a specific sheave placed near a boom tip measures a wire
tension and it is converted into a real weight in a real time.
2. Floating crane system Also, an encoder measures a moving distance of individual
main hook directly. Such data of weight and distance are used
A typical offshore floating crane consists of a floating barge for monitoring data knowing for current status and are feed-
and a crane part which handles a heavy load as shown in Fig. 1. back for closed-loop speed control for hoisting motion.
A buoyant barge is composed of three systems: a ballast
system to control buoyancy force, a mooring system to tie up 3. Definition of the cooperative control task for the dual
the barge on a stem and an anchoring system to be berthed on lifting
a stern. The crane is made up of main hooks and jib booms.
The hooks have been used for raising or lowering a load This paper proposes the dual lifting and its cooperative
vertically, which is called a hoisting motion. The jib booms control system with two different kinds of floating cranes in
have been used for changing outreach, which is called a luffing order to overcome the limit on performance of existing
motion. A hoisting motion is performed by winding and un- floating cranes and handle much heavier and wider blocks and
winding wire ropes installed on winches of individual main modules. The cooperative control system developed in this
hook which enables a load lifted and unloaded. A driving research signifies that when dual floating cranes are operated,
mechanism of a luffing motion is similar to a hoisting motion. it is the system which is automatically controlling hoisting
Namely, a luffing motion is performed by winding and un- speeds of main hooks of two individual floating cranes. This
winding wire ropes installed on winches of jib booms which control system is critical to lift and unload a load safely by
enable the outreach lengthen and shorten. keeping the balance between two floating cranes.
Fig. 2 shows the schematic diagram of a main hook control. If hoisting speeds of main hooks of two different floating
If an operator pulls a lever of a joystick on an operation desk, cranes (F/C #1 and F/C #2) during the dual lifting are not
 M. Nam et al. / International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering 10 (2018) 95e102 97

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of a main hook control.

synchronized, a Center of Gravity (COG) of a lifting module Tonnes F/C, 3600 Tonnes F/C and 8000 Tonnes F/C. For
can be changed, and this causes the creation of the tilting angle this study, the 3600 T F/C and the 8000 T F/C are selected in
of the load as shown in Fig. 3. order to maximize weight and width of a load which the dual
If the tilting angle exceeds the specific limit due to a change lifting can handle. The 3600 T F/C and 8000 T F/C have four
of a COG of a lifting module, a hanging load can be rotated or and eight main hooks, respectively. The barge size and the
turned over, which will result in a big accident during the dual hoisting speed of the two cranes are different as shown in
lifting. Therefore, the performance of the hoisting speed Table 1.
control of all main hooks of cranes is one of the most Notice that the dual lifting using two identical cranes has
important factors for the successful dual lifting. There are been published (Hwang et al., 2009a,b), however there has
three floating cranes with different capacities in SHI: 3000- been no study or verification of cooperative control using two
different cranes. The guidelines with regards to marine lifting
and lowering have been provided by DNV-GL (GL, 2015).
According to DNV-GL, for a 2-hook lift with the cranes on
separate offshore barges, the individual gross hook load at
each hook lifts shall be the more onerous condition of a tilt of
5
. In the case of operations of two floating cranes with over 5
hooks have severe conditions and special considerations are
required for them. The goal of this study is to develop the
cooperative control system with the maximum tilt of 3
and
the maximum hook elevation difference of ±1.0 m. This is
very challengeable with two cranes with different capacities
and the total 12 hooks.

Table 1
Specifications for floating cranes.
3600 T F/C 8000 T F/C
Barge part Length (m) 110 170
Breadth (m) 48 67
Crane part Rated load 3600 ton 8000 ton
(900 ton* 4 sets) (1000 ton* 8 sets)
Number of 4 8
main hooks
Hoisting speed 1.1e3 m/min 1.2e2.4 m/min
Fig. 3. The tilting angle during the dual lifting.
98 M. Nam et al. / International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering 10 (2018) 95e102

4. Design and development of the cooperative control 4.1. Hoisting control

system
Fig. 6 shows a flowchart for hoisting control algorithms of
The cooperative control system is based on master-slave the cooperative control system for the dual lifting. When the
configuration for the dual lifting, in which the 8000 T F/C dual lifting is applied and main hooks of the two floating
and the 3600 T F/C are defined as the master and the slave, cranes are moving, an operator should use the synchronized
respectively. operation desk located on the master crane. If an operator pulls
This system allows one operator to operate two inde- a lever of a joystick on the operation desk, the controller of the
pendent floating cranes at one time using the synchronized master crane checks the status of both cranes. If two floating
operation desk as shown in Fig. 4. The synchronized oper- cranes are normal states for driving, a closed loop speed
ation desk on the master enables to control all main hooks of control is applied to an induction motor for hoisting motion.
both cranes automatically and to maintain a balanced load Namely, the proportional control is developed for the hoisting
during the dual lifting. The master crane sends some com- speed of each main hook such as
mands to the slave crane to instruct slave's action and re-
ceives states of the slave crane via TCP/IP. In addition, the Vout ¼ Kp *e þ Vd ð1Þ
slave crane is also able to gather information about all
where Vout is the controlled hoisting speed, Kp denotes the
conditions of the master crane. For this data transmission,
proportional feedback gain, and e is the weight error which is
wired and wireless network system has been set up
the difference of reference weight and actual weight during the
considering the wide-use for different layout of two cranes.
dual lifting. Vd is the desired hoisting speed which depends on
The acquired information can be shown to recognize states
the step of a joystick on the operation desk. The proposed
of the other side by the M-CMS on the slave and the
speed control means the weight of each main hook should be
monitoring system on the synchronized operation desk,
kept its' reference weight in order to keep an initial position
respectively. The S-WOD on the master enable to operate
and orientation of a load.
mooring and anchoring winch systems on the slave, when it
For maintaining a balance of a load during the dual lifting
is required.
and the safety of the cooperative control system as well, an
The cooperative control system consists of hoisting control
interlock system has been designed by checking position de-
for lifting and unloading a load, the alarm treatment system for
viations between all main hooks, weight deviations of each
a safe operation, and the monitoring system for monitoring the
main hook, and changes of tilting angles of a lifting module. If
progress of dual lifting as shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 4. Configuration of the cooperative control system.

 M. Nam et al. / International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering 10 (2018) 95e102 99

Fig. 5. Cooperative control system.

the measured deviation is greater than the set value, the

controller of the master crane causes an alarm and makes two
floating cranes stop.

4.2. Alarm treatment system

The system safety of a floating crane is one of the most

important factors, due to the destructive effects of system
failures or malfunctions. Because the dual lifting using two
floating cranes handles a much heavier and wider load than a
single crane, the importance of the system safety for the
cooperative control system cannot be emphasized enough.
The alarms of the cooperative control system have been
designed according to the troubles, such as system errors,
communication alarms, and emergency stops shown as in
Fig. 7. System errors consist of warnings which let an operator
know the states of operating floating cranes and alarms which
indicate the situation of the controller stopping the two
floating cranes simultaneously. Because the two floating
cranes communicate by TCP/IP, it is necessary to have a stable
connection. If the connection between a master and a slave
cranes is lost, the controller of each crane causes an alarm and
stops the operation by itself. An emergency switch of each
crane is connected by a hard wiring in order to perform
correctly when it's needed. If the switch is pushed, the
controller of a master crane causes an alarm and stops the two
floating cranes immediately.

4.3. Monitoring system

Because the controller of a master crane takes charge of the

dual lifting, it is required to develop the monitoring system
which gathers status information of both floating cranes and
checks status of a load in a real time.
In other words, an operator in a master crane monitors all
the states of not only the master but also the slave cranes as
shown in Fig. 8. For examples, a height of each hook, a load of
each hook, a total load of each boom, an angle of each boom
Fig. 6. Flowchart for the hoisting control. and so on are illustrated on the LCD screen.
100 M. Nam et al. / International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering 10 (2018) 95e102

Fig. 7. Alarms for cooperative control system.

To check a balance of the load and to monitor the progress to block the wireless communication path to the controller in a
of the dual lifting, an inclinometer has been adapted. Notice real time. They are temporarily attached on a load for the
that keeping the balance of the load makes the system per- lifting process to send the tilting data to the controller using
formance free from the system characteristics of each floating wireless RF signals. At the bottom of the inclinometer module,
crane. there are some magnets which attach the module to the block
Two-axis inclinometers built in a box as shown in Fig. 9 tightly. When green switches on the top of the box are pushed
measure roll and pitch angles of a load during the dual lift- or released in Fig. 9, some magnets are moving up or down,
ing. The two-axis inclinometers can be attached on a load not which makes the sensor module stuck onto the load. The di-
rection of attachment is also marked by a yellow arrow on the
top of the box. The cooperative control system shows the

Fig. 8. Monitoring system e Slave view. Fig. 9. 2-axis inclinometer module.

 M. Nam et al. / International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering 10 (2018) 95e102 101

Table 2 The data log has been added to record all information of
Dual lifting schedule (Jung et al., 2016). floating cranes and a load during the dual lifting. As referred
Module ID Weight [tonne] Size (LxBxD) [m] Lifting date to Section 3, an analysis of tilting angles is used for evaluating
LM7U 6210 83  72  25 8th MAY 2015 the performance of the dual lifting.
LM8U 7400 83  40  27 10th MAY 2015
LG1U 7400 73  50  29 27th JUN 2015 5. Application of the cooperative control system
RS 4600 130  10  27 18th OCT 2015
LQ 4710 150  27  27 5th DEC 2015
The dual lifting crane system developed in this research has
been applied for lifting five heavy modules at SHI shipyard in
measured roll and pitch angles of a load on a monitoring 2015 shown as Table 2. As mentioned before, the 8000 T F/C
screen. In addition, the cooperative control system verifies and the 3600 T F/C in SHI are used for the dual lifting for
whether the measured data of lifting a load is within the Ichthys Central Processing Facility (CPF) Project. In case of
allowable range in tilting angles interlock or not. three heavy modules of LM7U, LM8U and LG1U, a width of

Fig. 10. Application of the dual lifting.

Fig. 11. Roll and pitch angles with LQ module during the lifting operation.
102 M. Nam et al. / International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering 10 (2018) 95e102

each module is enough to be handled by the 8000 T F/C, but total cranes efficiently. The performance of the proposed control
weight of each module exceeds the weight limit of the 8000 T F/ system has been verified through applications of the dual
C. For the other two modules of RS and LQ, their weights are lifting five times at SHI shipyard in 2015. In addition, it has
light enough to be lifted by using the 8000 T F/C, but the width been verified that the proposed hoisting control algorithms is
of each module exceeds the size limit of the 8000 T F/C. accurate enough to control main hooks of dual lifting
Fig. 10 (a) shows the topside integration with LM7U because the maximum tilting angles have been kept smaller
module of Ichthys CPF Project in May, 2015. The erection of than 0.5
. As an extension of this research, a monitoring and
LM7U module has been accomplished at a quay in SHI and collision avoidance system between a load and surrounding
then LM7U is lifted by the dual lifting and installed on the structures during the dual lifting will be developed in a near
topside of the structure which has been constructed in future.
Offshore Floating Dock (OFD). During the dual lifting, two
floating cranes have been maneuvered by several tugboats to References
move a load to OFD, because the lifting position of each
module is far away from the OFD. An example of maneu- Cha, J.H., Ku, N.K., Roh, M.I., Lee, K.Y., 2012. Dynamic response simulation
vering LM7U is shown in Fig. 10(b). of a heavy cargo suspended by parallel connected floating cranes. Trans.
Korean Soc. Mech. Eng. A 36 (6), 681e689.
During the dual lifting, two-axis inclinometers measure a GL Noble Denton Report, 2005. Guidelines for Marine Lifting & Lowering
tilting angle such as roll and pitch, and encoders measure hook Operations.
elevation difference in order to evaluate the performance of the Hwang, J.H., Ahn, J.I., Lee, S.B., Kim, Y.H., Choung, J.S., Ham, S.H.,
cooperative control system. The maximum tilting angle is Lee, W.J., 2009a. Free surface procedure for lifting operation by parallel
smaller than 0.5
and the maximum hook elevation difference connected floating cranes using synchronized operation system and its
applications to lifting operation of a heavy cargo. Special Issue of the
is also ±0.2 m in all cases. While LQ, the widest module, is Society of Naval Architects of Korea, pp. 197e206.
being lifted, the tilting angle is within 0.2
as shown in Fig. 11. Hwang, J.H., Kim, Y.H., Ha, S.H., Seo, J.G., Lee, C.Y., Lee, K.Y., Park, K.P.,
Therefore, the goals of this study specified in Section 3 have Cha, J.H., 2009b. Guideline of weight factor for lifting operation by par-
been achieved successfully. Namely, it implies that the allel connected floating cranes and verification using simulation. Special
developed cooperative control system is suitable to control Issue of the Society of Naval Architects of Korea, pp. 107e114.
Jung, D.W., Kim, H.J., Ji, H.S., Jeong, H.S., Nam, M.H., Lee, D.Y., Kim, B.K.,
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This paper presented the dual lifting and its cooperative cranes, Korea Patent No. 10e0718928.
control system to utilize two different kinds of floating