A ball and beam tracking and balance control using magnetic suspension actuators

A new ball and beam system is constructed using a pair of magnetic suspension actuators in this paper. The proposed system can be used not only as a control theory verification and practice platform, but also as an educational demonstration and training tool for system integration of electrics, mechanics and cybernetics. The proposed control system activates two magnetic suspension actuators on either side of the beam. The magnetic force, as a function of position and coil current, was measured and modelled by a quadratic function. The system mathematical model is derived by the Lagrangian function. For control performance, a single chip microprocessor as control kernel with basic electronic components is designed and implemented. The ball and beam system hardware as well as microprocessor-based control circuit is implemented and tested. The static and dynamic performance of the ball and beam system is tested with several different scenarios. The system operation on oscillatory stabilization and sinusoidal tracking is verified with excellent operational characteristics.