Investigation on planar electromagnetic levitation system using lead compensation and LQR controllers

Magnetic levitation is a method by which an object is suspended with no support other than magnetic fields. The main objective of this study is to demonstrate stabilized closed-loop control of 2-DOF maglev experimentally using real-time control Simulink feature of (SIMLAB) microcontroller. Phase lead compensation and linear quadratic regulator (LQR) controllers are employed to examine the stability performance of the maglev control system under effect of sudden wave signal change and load on maglev plane. The effect of sudden change of applied wave signal on single point, line and plane is presented. Furthermore, in order to study the effect of sudden change of applied load, the direct full load has been applied on all points of the prototype maglev plate simultaneously. Moreover, the airgap distance controlled using phase lead compensation controller is unstable with high oscillation. Meanwhile, LQR controller provided more stability, homogeneous response and good agreement. Additionally, the results of pulse width modulation reveal that the control system using LQR controller provides identical and smooth response to adjust the levitated plane compared to phase lead compensation controller.