Linear Quadratic Servo Design for Magnetic Levitation Systems Considering Disturbance Forces from Linear Synchronous Motor

Recently, the demand of maglev systems in the manufacturing industry for LCD and OLED display panels, which are required to be very clean and possess vacuum systems, has been increasing due to their characteristics such as being non-contact, noise free and eco-friendly. However, it is still a challenge to simultaneously control both the propulsion and levitation for their interactive effect difficult to be exactly measured. In this paper, we proposed a new tuning method for controlling the magnetic levitation force robustly against the levitation disturbance caused by a propulsion system, based on LQ servo optimal control. The disturbance torque of the LSM propulsion system is calculated through FEM analysis in such a way that the LQ servo controller is determined in order to minimize the effect of the disturbance. The robust performance of the proposed LQ servo control method for the in-track type magnetic levitation systems is demonstrated via simulations and experiments.