Finite-time stabilization of an overhead crane with a flexible cable submitted to an affine tension

The paper is concerned with the finite-time stabilization of a hybrid PDE-ODE system describing the motion of an overhead crane with a flexible cable. The dynamics of the flexible cable is described by the wave equation with a variable coefficient which is an affine function of the curvilinear abscissa along the cable. Using several changes of variables, a backstepping transformation, and a finite-time stable second-order ODE for the dynamics of a conveniently chosen variable, we prove that a global finite-time stabilization occurs for the full system constituted of the platform and the cable. The kernel equations and the finite-time stable ODE are numerically solved in order to compute the nonlinear feedback law, and numerical simulations validating our finite-time stabilization approach are presented.