Design and analysis of a control system for a multi-magnet levitation system

This paper deals with some analytical and experimental aspects to control a multi-magnet suspended vehicle. Because the response of a multi-magnet vehicle shows mutually coupled interaction, an analytical description of the vehicle dynamics is necessary. For numerical computations, a linearized modelling of vehicle dynamics is dicussed and computer simulation is carried out. And for the experiment, a test vehicle suspended by four magnets has been made and investigated by local control of each magnet. Two algorithms by PID and state feedback control law are used and compared with each other. Some kinds of disturbance characteristics and coupling effects of the width change of the test vehicle are experimented.