A novel levitation control strategy for a class of redundant actuation maglev system

In most maglev (magnetic levitation) systems, redundant electromagnetic actuators are usually used to increase the stability and robustness of the levitation motion. However, the obvious interactions generate between the redundant actuators and other general electromagnetic actuators. In this paper, a new and efficient redundant levitation control strategy is developed to overcome the interactions in this maglev system. In the strategy, some separate general controllers are designed for all general actuators, and then some special controllers are used to real-time track the electromagnetic forces of all general actuators, and accordingly they create control signal for the redundant actuators to counteract the interactions among general actuators and redundant actuators. To further illustrate the strategy, a novel redundant actuation maglev system is then demonstrated, and a simplified expression of the redundant control strategy is investigated for the maglev system. The experimental results show that the redundant levitation controller successfully removes the interactions between redundant actuator and general actuators, and the redundant levitation controller maintains good robustness under disturbance.