Design of a Compact Planar Magnetic Levitation System with Wrench–Current Decoupling Enhancement

Abstract

Magnetic levitation technology has promising applications in modern manufacturing, especially for fine-motion stage and long-range omnidirectional planar motors. This paper presents the development of a compact planar maglev prototype with the potential to achieve both applications to increase flexibility for the manufacturing system. The planar stator is designed by using optimized square coils arranged in the zigzag configuration, which provides a better uniform magnetic flux density compared with another configuration. The stator is a compact and portable module with built-in current amplifier units. The single-disc magnet mover is deployed with five controllable degrees of freedom. The cross-coupling effect is decoupled by a precomputed Lorentz force based wrench—current transformation matrix stored in the lookup table. A 2-D linear interpolation is implemented to enhance decoupling effectiveness which is offered via discrete lookup data. Experiments with motion-tracking cameras and a basic controller demonstrate the results of fine step motion of 10 and 20 µm and rotation steps of 0.5 and 1.0 mrad. The potential for multidirectional material handling is represented by a total horizontal translation range of 20 mm by 20 mm with a maximum air gap of 26 mm and a total rotation range of 20 degrees for both roll and pitch.