Application of Differential Geometry in Magnetic Levitation Control

To enhance the reliability of levitation, an especial installation called joint-structu re is applied to the maglev vehicle. Due to the joint-structure, each suspension point of the maglev vehicle is regulate d by two independent controllers. When one controller of the suspension point breaks down, the system can still be stably suspended by the other controller. However, there is strong force-coupling between the two controllers for the joint-structure, which makes the controlle r designed based on totally separated suspension point unsuccessful in application. To realize stable suspension for joint-struc ture, diffenrential geometry method is introduced to obtain a globally decoupling and linearized model for the system. Then the control parameters are designed by pole assignment. Experimental and simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed control algorithm.