Design, implementation and self-tuning adaptive control of maglev guiding system

This paper presents a self-tuning adaptive control (STA control) for a magnetically levitated (maglev) guiding system. The guiding system is a repulsive maglev system with a passive carrier and four active guiding tracks. Hybrid magnets exert the levitation forces, whereas the stabilizing forces are produced by electromagnets. Given such a system, an STA stabilizing controller is developed, and the thorough analysis of the stability property is also proposed. It is shown that without precise knowledge of various components, the overall system stability and the regulating precision are assured, which validates the hereby proposed system. From the simulation and experimental results, the performance of the system design and the enforced control mechanism is demonstrated successfully.