Design and Servo Control of a Single-Deck Planar Maglev Stage

This paper addresses the design and control issues in a novel single-deck six degree-of-freedom (DOF) magnetic levitation (maglev) stage. The proposed design uses an array of solenoids to levitate and to hold a permanent magnet (PM) carrier in place. The solenoids are excited in a manner to generate restoring force when the platform with PMs is displaced from its equilibrium position. The ANSOFT finite element analysis results help providing insight to the design of the mechanism and the solenoid arrangement for the maglev stage. The study builds the mathematical model for the novel maglev stage and uses computer simulation to tune the PID control parameters. Actual implementation results show that the design is feasible and susceptible to position and altitude control