Inverse Model Based Adaptive Control of Magnetic

Levitation System
Muhammad Shafiq and Sohail Akhtar
Department of Systems Engineering
College of Computer Science & Systems Engineering
King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals
Dhahran 31261, Saudi Arabia
Email: mshafiq@ccse.kfupm.edu.sa, sakhtar@ccse.kfupm.edu.sa

ABSTRACT well in the same zone. A linear controller for such a

This paper presents, an adaptive finite impulse re-
sponse (FIR) filter based controller used for the track-
ing of a ferric ball under the influence of magnetic
force. The adaptive filer is designed online as approx-
imate inverse system. To stabilize the open-loop un-
stable and highly nonlinear magnetic levitation sys-
tem, PID controller is designed using polynomial ap-
proach. To improve the stability, an adaptive FIR fil-
ter is added along side the PID controller while the
use of the proposed controller has improved tracking.
Since adaptive FIR filters are inherently stable so the
controller remains stable. Experimental results are in-
cluded to highlight the excellent position tracking per-
formance.
KEY WORDS
Adaptive Control, Magnetic Levitation, Adaptive FIR
Filters
1 Introduction
Magnetic levitation (Maglev) systems are attracting
the attention of researchers as a mean of eliminat-
ing the Columbic friction due to mechanical contacts.
They are widely used in various fields such as fric-
tionless bearings, high-speed Maglev passenger trains,
levitation of wind tunnel models, vibration isolation of
sensitive machinery, levitation of molten metal in in-
duction furnaces, and levitation of metal slabs during
manufacture [1-14]. Maglev systems are usually highly
non-linear and open-loop unstable. Therefore, it is al-
ways a challenging job to construct a high performance
feedback controller to control the position of a levi-
tated object. In recent years, many approaches have
been reported in literature based on linear and non-
linear system models for controlling this system. The
standard linear technique is quite straight forward. It
is based on an approximate linear model found by per-
turbing the system dynamics about a desired operat-
ing point. As this linear system model is valid only
around a ‘small’ region of the operating point, the re-
sulting linear controller is only expected to function
system was designed and implemented in [1]. The non-
linear system equations were perturbed about an oper-
ating point, resulting in an approximate linear model
which has an open-loop pole in the right-half plane.
A phase-lead (linear) compensator is used to stabilize
the system for step responses of 1.5 mm around the
operating point.
Recently, extensive work has been reported for
controlling a Maglev system by taking the non-
linearities of the system model into account. A com-
parison of a sliding mode controller versus a linear
phase-lead controller is carried out in [2]. The study
has shown that the sliding mode controller has pro-
vided a better transient response than the linear con-
troller. The current dynamics are neglected in the used
feedback controller and the ball’s motion was limited
to a range of 1mm only. In [3], the authors have car-
ried out a comparative study of linear and non-linear
state-space controllers for Maglev system. A linear
state-feedback controller-observer, based on linear sys-
tem model; and a non-linear controller in conjunction
with a non-linear velocity observer providing tracking
and regulation was implemented. These experimen-
tal observations have shown that the two controllers
have a comparable response to step inputs. However,
feed-back linearization controller has provided signifi-
cantly better trajectory tracking. A highly non-linear
model without premagentizing current in the coil has
been used in [4]. A non-linear controller is proposed
to reduce the effect of the imbalance on the rotor dis-
placement without estimating the perturbation. The
results highlight the use of a non-linear controller. A
single degree of freedom (1-dof) magnetic suspension
system has been designed and constructed in [5] to
compare the performance of linear and non-linear dig-
ital control schemes. It is shown that due to a non-
linear relationship between force, current and air gap,
a non-linear controller will outperform a conventional
controller in an environment where large variations of
operating points are considered. Feedback lineariza-
tion technique has been employed though it requires a
very accurate system model.
Polyhedral Lyapunov functions and linear vari-
able structure stabilization controller is used in [6].
These functions have the property that the control
and state constraints can be taken into account during
their construction. A success in using a chaos control
method for stabilizing a Maglev system based on time
delay auto-synchronization controller is reported in [7].
A linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) design method
with additional design freedom for frequency shaping
based on inverse linear quadratic (ILQ) design method
is reported in [8]. This gives a lower order controller
than the H∞ controller. The results have shown the
same tracking ability as that of the ILQ controller and
at the same time suppresses the spillover. A non-linear
model has been developed in [9]. Feedback lineariza-
tion approach is used to control the ball position over
long distances (in the range of 40mm). The robust-
ness of the scheme is validated by the variation of
mass and the evolution of resistance and inductance
of electromagnet. A SISO second order non-linear dif-
ferential equation is considered to represent the system
in [10]. In the presence of parameter uncertainties, an
adaptive robust non-linear controller in a back step-
ping manner is proposed. At first step, a PI controller
is designed to stabilize the position error. Then an
adaptive robust non-linear controller consisting of an
adaptive feedback linearization control term and a ro-
bust non-linear damping term is designed to undo the
effect of parameter uncertainties. This combined ap-
proach has achieved a better performance as compared
to the case where either is employed alone. Variable
structure control (VSC) for robust stabilization and
disturbance rejection of a 1-dof Maglev system is ap-
plied in [11]. A method called Reaching law method
complemented by a sliding mode equivalence technique
is used.
A novel 2-sigma artificial neural network to esti-
mate the bounds of modelling uncertainties resulting
from parameter variations, un-modelled dynamics and
non-deterministic processes in a dynamic plant has
been proposed in [12]. The application of this network
to robust control strategies such as sliding mode con-
trol enables intelligent, spatially-dependent controller
gains that retain robust performance without exces-
sive control activity. [13] gives a new model and un-
certainty structure of a Maglev system by using lin-
ear fractional transformations (LFT), which contains
less conservativeness for robust stability/performance
analysis. A method for quantifying the magnitude
of uncertainties is also developed. Later on a ro-
bust controller by µ-analysis and synthesis is designed,
which has shown robust performance. A combina-
tion of fuzzy-sliding-mode and state-feedback control
is used in [14]. This concoction has the advantage of
both methods: high-speed response of fuzzy-sliding-
mode and small steady state error of state-feedback
approach. The proposed controller has shown a swift
response and a large operating range (100mm) to a
step command signal.
This paper proposes an adaptive FIR filter based
control algorithm implemented on a laboratory scale
Maglev system. Motivations of the use of adaptive FIR
filters is the fact that these filters are always stable and
easy to implement. This means that the controller will
always remain stable. The objective is accomplished
by estimating the plant parameters and the approxi-
mate inverse system by normalized least mean square
(NLMS) estimator [15]. The paper is organized as fol-
lows: Section 2 is devoted to problem statement and
the controller design. Section 3 gives the mathemati-
cal model of the Maglev system which is used for PID
controller design. Experimental results are shown in
Section 4, and finally the paper concludes with Section
5 which briefly discusses the obtained results.
2 Problem Statement
Let us describe a single-input single-output (SISO)
stable linear discrete-time plant by
A(q)y(t) = q −d B(q)u(t), (1)
where


n

m
A(q) = 1 + ai q −i , B(q) = bj q −j ,
i=1 j=0
q −1 is a back shift operator, d represents a known time-
delay and b0
= 0. A(q) and B(q) are co-prime polyno-
mials of degrees n and m, and n ≥ m. It is supposed
that parameters ai and bj are unknown. Further, de-
grees of B(q) and A(q) may be unknown. The plant
can be a minimum or non-minimum phase system.
u(t) and y(t) are the measurable input and output,
respectively. In these circumstances, the objective is
to synthesize a bounded control input u(t) using a two
degrees of freedom adaptive controller based on adap-
tive FIR filters such that the plant output y(t) tracks
desired bounded input sequence yd (t).
2.1 Controller Design
Let us synthesize the control input u(t), from the fol-
lowing equation
u(t) = F̂ (q) [P (q)yd (t) − δy(t)] , (2)
where F̂ (q) is a polynomial, which satisfies the follow-
ing approximation
B(q)
q −d F̂ (q) ≈ q −L , (3)
A(q)
L is a positive integer and L ≥ d. We say that F̂ (q) is
the L-delay approximate inverse system of the plant.
The polynomial F̂ (q) can be estimated using some
suitable estimator like the NLMS estimator, same as
in adaptive equalization problem [15, 16]. The polyno-
mial F̂ (q) can be considered as an adaptive FIR filter.
δ is a constant such that |δ| < 1 and P (q) = 1 + δq −L .
Using equations (1), (2) and (3), the following relation
can be shown easily
lim y(t) = yd (t − L). (4)
t→∞
This means the plant output will track the desired
output with some delay. As F̂ (q) is an adaptive FIR
filter and P (q) is an FIR filter, so the controller will
remain stable. It can also be shown by using equations
(1), (2) and (3) that the characteristic polynomial is
P (q) = 1 + δq −L and |δ| < 1, so the closed-loop will
remain stable. The block diagram of the proposed
control strategy is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. NLMS based Inverse Controller
3 Magnetic Levitation System Mod-
elling
Figure 2 below shows the simplified diagram of Ma-
glev system (adapted from Feedback Instrument Ltd.
manual).
Figure 2. Simplified Maglev System Diagram
The photo-sensors measure the ball’s position. Corre-
sponding to the ball’s position from the electromagnet,
the sensor generates a voltage output (Vsensor ) obey-
ing the following relation:
Vsensor = −γ(X − X0 ) (5)
where γ > 0 and X0 is the nominal operating point.
For X=X0 , sensor output will be zero, so the variation
in sensor voltage is given by:
∆Vsensor = −γ∆X (6)
The current through electromagnet is given by the re-
lation:
I = 0.15U + I0 (7)
where I0 is the nominal operating current at nominal
ball position X0 .
The variation in current is given by:
∆I = 0.15∆U (8)
The ball’s displacement is governed by the following
equation:
I2
mẌ = mg − k (9)
X2
where m is the mass of the ball, g is gravitational
constant, k is magnetic force constant, X is ball’s dis-
placement and I is the current through the magnetic
coil.
Linearizing above equation around nominal operating
point and replacing ∆I by equation 8 will yield:
I02 I0
m∆Ẍ = 2k ∆X − 0.3k 2 ∆U (10)
X03 X0
where constant k is obtained by setting the derivatives
of the non-linear model to zero.
Approximating the above system with a 2nd order
transfer function will give:
η
G(s) = (11)
s2 − ω02

with η ∼
= 3γ
I0 and ω0 ∼
= 20
X0
4 Real Time Implementation and Ex-
perimental Results
A laboratory scale Maglev system, manufactured by
Feedback Instrument Ltd., is used to evaluate the per-
formance of the proposed adaptive controller. An elec-
tromagnet applies a magnetic force which holds the
steel ball in air counter acting the force of gravity.
By varying the current through the electromagnet, the
steel ball can be forced to follow a predetermined tra-
jectory. The metallic ball is manually introduced in
the magnetic field. An array of infrared transmitters
and detectors, positioned such that the sphere inter-
sects the infrared beam, is used to determine the ball’s
position. The output of the ball position sensor is a
voltage signal in the range of ±2.6 volts. This corre-
sponds to a ball movement of 25mm in the magnetic
field. System models were built in Simulink. Matlab
Real Time Windows (RTW) Toolbox is used to gen-
erate C sources and executable programs, which can
be run in real time. A standard Pentium III IBM per-
sonal computer is used and a sampling frequency of
1kHz is selected. Advantech PC 1711 data-acquisition at the crests and troughs of the reference sinusoidal
card with a preamplifier is employed to interface the signal as shown in Figure 6. To improve the tracking
measured and control signals.
As mentioned before, Maglev systems are open-
loop unstable, so a PID controller is used to stabilize
the system as shown in Figure 3. The above mentioned
2nd order system model is used to design the PID con-
troller using polynomial approach. The obtained con-
troller’s gains were kP =1.5, kI =3 and kD =0.2 for the
system closed-loop poles at −0.6 + 4i, −0.6 − 4i and Figure 5. AFIR addition to improve the stability
−2 in the s-plane. We have applied a sinusoidal de-
mand signal of amplitude 1.5 volts. An effort to ap-
ply a larger amplitude input signal resulted in system
collapse. Figure 4 shows the actual and desired ball
positions and the applied control signal. It is evident
from the response that the ball has started to follow
the desired trajectory with some ripples especially at
the extreme sides of the desired signal. It was also
observed that when the system parameters (resistance
and inductance) vary with electromagnet heating, the
performance of the PID controller was deteriorated.

Figure 6. Input output signals with AFIR addition

Figure 3. PID controller for system stabilization

ability of the system, filters F̂ (q) and P (q) are added

as shown in Figure 7. Adaptive filter, F̂ (q), is the ap-
proximate inverse of the system. A filer order of 32
is used. Plant output is used as the filter input and
the difference of the delayed signal applied to the sta-
bilized plant and output of the F̂ (q) is used for filter
adaptation. Filter P (q) is used for input scaling. The
system response is shown in Figure 8 along with the
control signal. It can be seen that, with the approach
proposed in this paper, the object in levitation follows
the reference set point very well on a long range of
travel (±2.6 volts, which is the full operating range of
the prototype system used in these experiments).

Figure 4. Input output signals using PID controller

In an effort to minimize the effect of parameter
deterioration due to heating effect and to increase the
stable range of the Meglev system, an AFIR filter is
added in parallel with the PID controller as shown by
the schematic in Figure 5. A 10th order adaptive filter
is employed. The error between reference and actual
trajectories is used as filter input as well as adapting
signal. The addition has increased the stable operat- Figure 7. Discrete-time IMC Configuration
ing range to ±2.2 volts. But still mismatch between
desired and actual ball positions is observed, notably

Figure 8. Input output signals using inverse controller
5 Conclusion
In this paper an inverse model based adaptive control
algorithm is proposed. Inherently stable NLMS filters
are used as the approximate inverse model. Since a
bounded input is applied to the system and stable
FIR filters are used with the stabilized plant, so the
controller output always remains bounded. The con-
troller’s performance is verified on a highly non-linear
Maglev system. The results have shown excellent
tracking of the sinusoidal reference trajectories over
the full operating range. It is also shown that addition
of an adaptive FIR filter in parallel with the PID
controller has improved the system stability.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank KFUPM for its sup-
port to carry out this research work.
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