SUMMARY
Aerial lifts are used to elevate people and material to high heights. There are many different types of aerial lifts which have vastly different dynamics characteristics. Thus, a new categorization for aerial lifts was created and organizes them by their kinematics. Many accidents occur while using aerial lifts. Hazards of aerial lifts and current solutions to those hazards were reviewed to understand the causes to the accidents. Some major accidents are due to the complex dynamics and flexibility of aerial lifts, such as oscillations and tip-overs. Oscillations of full-size aerial lifts were experimentally tested for their system frequency at different configurations. Machine-motion induced oscillations of a model articulating aerial lift were simulated and analyzed for both non-overcenter and overcenter configurations. Input shaping was used to achieve reduction in machine-motion induced oscillations. Tip-over stability margin was used to simulate and analyze the stability of both non-overcenter and overcenter configurations. The effects of increased platform mass on tip-over stability margin was also analyzed.