PID Control of Maglev Guiding System for Linear

Elevator
M. Moazen1, M.B.B.Sharifian2

H. Afshari3

1, 2

Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering,

University of Tabriz
Tabriz, Iran
m.moazen88@ms.tabrizu.ac.ir, sharifian@tabrizu.ac.ir
AbstractIn this paper, two different PID control methods
are described to control of Maglev Guiding System for Linear
Elevator. The linear elevator driven by permanent magnet linear
synchronous motor (PMLSM) use the method to adopt the
magnetic guidance system to control the PMLSM gap which
changes frequently and can impact the vertical thrust and control
the level vibration and noise in the process of start, operation,
and stop to make passenger feel comfortable. The first PID
control method is based on feedback linearization. In this
method, single Maglev guiding systems are controlled to maintain
the air gap of linear motor in the reference value independently.
To achieve a more practical control method and better operation
of maglev guiding system, this method is corrected and a
simultaneous control method of two counterpart Maglev systems
is proposed. MATLAB modeling of these systems are used in this
paper. Simulation results show that the second method has a
better performance.

Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering,

University of Tabriz
Tabriz, Iran
hadi.afsharirad@gmail.com

Fig. 1.

The stereogram of linear elevator with Maglev guiding system

Fig. 2.

The platform of linear elevator with Maglev guiding system

KeywordsMaglev guiding system; magnetic levitation; PID

control; linear elevator

I.

INTRODUCTION

It is well known that traditional elevator consists of the car

in the shaft, the traction rope installed on the traction wheel and
the guiding equipment which is usually in the form of the slider
or roller guide. However, compared to non-contact solutions,
the traditional lead frame has many shortcomings. High-rise
buildings require the effectiveness of passenger transport. In
fact, the higher the speed, the more the deteriorated effect.
Traditional guiding systems require lubrication and regular
maintenance. The improved non-contact guiding systems that
eliminate the audible noise and control the oriented stiffness
can get higher comfort [1, 2].
The platform and stereogram of the system can be seen as
in Figs. 1 and 2. Suspension technologies have brought the
technological innovations, the traditional elevator guide shoes
prone to car vibration when the elevator operates at high-speed.
The elevator vibration is one of the concerns in engineering
circles; it should be said that the vibration of elevator system
can be individually or jointly caused by mechanical and
electrical effect.
The non-linear friction of elevator guide shoes has a larger
impact on elevator, for example, when the elevator is running

978-1-4673-0934-9/12/$31.00 2012 IEEE

at low speed, such as leveling or stopping, a low-speed

crawl phenomena will occur sometimes. In severe cases, even a
buzz vibration that appears leads to resonance of car panels
which seriously affect the elevator riding comfort. Therefore,
magnetic levitation technology is used in elevator guide rail to
solve the problems of the car vibration. For linear elevator, it is
particularly important to make the air gap of the linear motor
constant, which affects the magnitude of the propulsion force.
Because of these reasons, it has been proposed that magnetic
levitation guide shoe must be used in linear elevator to control
the air gap of linear motor by controlling the air gap of the
magnetic levitation [3-6].
In this paper, two different PID control methods by
controlling the air gap of the magnetic levitation are introduced
to control the PMLSM gap. In section 2, the mathematical
model of Maglev system is obtained. A PID control strategy of
a single Maglev system [7, 8] is described in section 3; and

section 4 shows the simulation results of this system in

MATLAB software.

m(t ) F (t ) F (i, ) F (t )
K
d

ki 2 (t )
F (i, ) 2
(t )

2k
2ki (t )
i (t ) 2 (t )
u (t ) ri(t )

(
t
)
(t )

In order to achieve a more practical control method and

better operation of maglev guiding system, the introduced
method is improved and a simultaneous control method of two
counterpart Maglev systems is proposed in section 5. The
simulation results of proposed system are also shown in this
section. Section 6 is allotted to conclusion.
II.

MATHEMATICAL MODEL OF MAGLEV GUIDING SYSTEM

First, in this section, the mathematical model of Maglev

guiding system has been explained. Suppose the gravity and
the linear motor thrust balance with each other. According to
Newton's second law the equations of lateral motion are
obtained:

m(t ) FK (t ) F (i, ) Fd (t )

(1)

where (t ) , (t ) , F (i, ) , FK (t ) and Fd (t ) are the air gap

length, lateral speed differential, electromagnetic force,
electromagnetic force of counterpart Maglev, and external
disturbance force, respectively.
Since the resistance of the electromagnet and the rail has
been ignored, the reluctance of magnetic circuit composes of
electromagnets and the suspended beams focused on the air
gap between them. The effective air-gap reluctance is as
follows:

2
0 A

Then, the pulling force of the electromagnetic force is given

F (i, )

0 AN 2 i 2 (t )
4 2 (t )

(3)

where N and i(t) are the number of winding turns and the
current of single Maglev equipment, respectively. Voltage of
single Maglev equipment is attained by:

u (t ) ri(t )

0 AN 2
AN 2 i(t )
i (t ) 0 2
(t )
2 (t )
2 (t )

(4)

Mathematical model of single electromagnetic equipment is

obtained as follows:

0 AN 2
4

The state variables x1 , x 2 and x3 i and y x1

output of system are chosen, then the nonlinear state function is
obtained as:

x2
x1

0
0
2
k x 3

F
(
t
)
F
(
t
)
d
K

x 2 0 u

m
m x1 x1
m
x

0
3 x 2 x3 rx1 x3

2k

x 2k
1

y x
1

where

(6)

F (t )
FK (t )
can be seen as the disturbance as d
.
m
m
III.

(2)

where 0 and A are permeability of the vacuum and crosssection of the air gap, respectively.
by:

where k

(5)

CONTROL STRATEGY

A. Feedback Linearization
If the state variable vector is chosen as follows:

z z1

z2

z3

x1

x2

k x
3
m x1

(7)

The state function of Maglev equipment system can be

established:

z 0

y 1

1 0 0

0 1 z 0 v Az Bv
0 0 1
0 0 Cz

(8)

rx32
x
3 u . Therefore nonlinear voltage
mx1 mx1
feedback control principle is given by:
where v

u ( x) ( x)v rx3

mx1
v
x3

(9)

ref

PID

B. PID Controller Design

The definition of deviation e(t) is given by:

e(t ) yexp y

Eq. 9

Fd

Electromagnet

z3
i

FK

(10)

where y is actual output of the system. From the state space

function (8), yexp is defined as expected output of the system.
By integrating the system deviation, p(t) can be derived:
t

p(t ) e(t )dt .

0

(11)

(12)

By equation (8) and (12) together form the augmented

system; its open-loop state equation is derived:

z A 0 z B
0
v

p C 0 p 0
y exp

y C 0 p

(13)

Meanwhile augmented system is controllable.

In order to achieve arbitrary pole placement, the following
state feedback control law is chosen:

de(t )
v kz k p e(t ) k i e(t ) dt k d
0
dt

Fig. 3.

Single Maglev system model

two counterpart Maglev systems has been proposed and has

been studied simultaneously.
The parameters of the magnetic levitation system for single
Maglev equipment in all three tests are:

Then derivative of p(t) is obtained:

p (t ) e(t ) yexp Cz

d/dt

State Feedback

(14)

where the state feedback gain vector k is defined

k 1 k 2 and kp, ki, and kd are PID controller

k k 0

ref 0.003m

N 400turns

m 500kg

A 0.65 0.65m 2 .
The gains of the PID controller are found by trial and error
method for best response for the test system.
A. Test I
In this section, the Maglev system using the described
and
feedback
linearization
method
(for
0 0
FK (t ) 5000 N ) has been tested. The system model in
MATLAB software is seen as Fig. 3. The simulation results are
shown in Figs. 4 to 9. Each air gap changing factor could be
considered as a disturbance force.

Fig. 4 is the actual and reference value of the air gap of

single Maglev system. Figs. 5 and 6 are the external
disturbance force and response of Maglev force, respectively.
The disturbance force with 500N is added to the Maglev
equipment at t=0.05s, and ended at t=0.1s, and with -500N is
added at t=1s, and ended at t=1.05s, sequentially. Fig. 7 is the
lateral speed of Maglev equipment, or called air gap
differential. Figs. 8 and 9 show the input voltage (reference
value) and current of Maglev system, respectively.

coefficients.
delta [mm]

IV.

SIMULATION

Mathematical model of Maglev guiding system and its PID

control for linear elevator based on feedback linearization are
explained. To check the performance of the Maglev system and
the introduced control method, MATLAB software is used. To
this end, three tests have been done on the Maglev guiding
system.
In the first test, Maglev system and the control method
described in Section 3, are simulated in MATLAB software
and simulation results are shown below. In the second and third
tests, a new control method (with PID controller) that controls

and

Fig. 4.

deltaref
delta

0.5

1
t [s]

1.5

The actual and reference value of air gap (Test I)

m(t ) F2 (i2 , ) F1 (i1 , ) Fd (t )

600
400

f f[N/m]
d [N]

200

where

0
-200
-400
-600

Fig. 5.

(15)

0.5

1
t [s]

1.5

F (i1 , )

0 AN 2 i12 (t )
4 2 (t )

(16)

External disturbance force (Test I)

F (i2 , )

10000
8000

(17)

[N]
[N/m]
FF

6000

In this case, instead of applying the voltage as the reference

value to the Maglev system, currents ( i1 , i 2 ) are applied. On the
other hand, the output of PID controller, which is used to
control the amount of air gap in the reference value ( ref ), is
applied to the system according to the following equation:

4000
2000
0

Fig. 6.

0 AN 2 i22 (t )
.
2
42 ref (t )

0.5

1
t [s]

1.5

Response of Maglev force (Test I)

V [mm/s]

200

0
-100

Fig. 7.

If ( I Out put of PID) 0 : i2 I , i1 0

.

If ( I Out put of PID) 0 : i1 I , i2 0

100

0.5

1
t [s]

1.5

Lateral speed of Maglev equipment (Test I)

2000

u [V]

1000
0
-1000
-2000

Fig. 8.

0.5

1
t [s]

1.5

Input voltage (Test I)

1

i [A]

0
-1
-2
-3

Fig. 9.

0.5

1
t [s]

1.5

Current of Maglev system (Test I)

V.

PROPOSED CONTROL METHOD

If we select a constant value for FK (t ) , the first test used, is

unrealistic. Therefore, in this section we try to control two
counterpart Maglev systems, simultaneously. Therefore the
dynamic model of system is as follow:

(18)

A. Test II
The system model in this case in MATLAB software is
seen as Fig. 10. In this case, because the current and thus
response of Maglev force is directly controlled, the system has
greater stability and won't need to state feedback and
consequently, the control system will be simple.
The simulation results are shown in Figs. 11 to 16

for 0 0 . Fig. 11 is the actual and reference value of the air

gap of Maglev system; the air gap error of Maglev system can
be reduced rapidly. Fig. 12 is the external disturbance force and
Figs. 13 and 14 show the response of Maglev forces. This test
is done for the same external disturbance force of the first test.
Fig. 15 is the lateral speed of Maglev equipment. Fig. 16 shows
the currents of two counterpart Maglev systems.
B. Test III
In this section, second test is repeated for 0 0.003m (In
previous test, 0 was placed equal to zero in order to compared
with the first test results). Figs. 17 to 21 show the simulation
results. Fig. 17 is the actual and reference value of the air gap
of Maglev system; the air gap error of Maglev system is very
small and can be reduced rapidly. Figs. 18 and 19 are the
external disturbance force and response of Maglev forces,
respectively. This test is done for the same external disturbance
force of the previous tests. Fig. 20 is the lateral speed of
Maglev equipment. Fig. 21 shows the currents of two
counterpart Maglev systems.

200

PID

Fd

not

>=0

Fig. 10.

i1

Electromagnets

i2

100

V [mm/s]

ref

0
-100

Double Maglev system model

Fig. 15.

0.5

1
t [s]

1.5

Lateral speed of Maglev equipment (Test II)

3

deltaref
delta

i1
i2

i [A]

delta [mm]

1
0

Fig. 11.

0.5

1
t [s]

1.5

The actual and reference value of air gap (Test II)

-1

Fig. 16.

0.5

1
t [s]

1.5

Currents of Maglev system (Test II)

600

delta [mm]

0
-200
-400
-600

Fig. 12.

deltaref
delta

200

[N]
f fd[N/m]

400

0.5

1
t [s]

1.5

3.5
3

2.5

External disturbance force (Test II)

Fig. 17.

0.5

1
t [s]

1.5

The actual and reference value of air gap (Test III)

600

F1
F2

400

5000

200
0

[N]
f fd[N/m]

FF[N/m]
[N]

10000

Fig. 13.

-200
-400

0.5

1
t [s]

1.5

Response of Maglev forces (Test II)

-600

Fig. 18.

0.5

1
t [s]

1.5

External disturbance force (Test III)

200
F1
F2

600

100

[N]
[N/m]
FF

[N]
F F[N/m]

800

F1
F2

150

50

400
200

Fig. 14.

0.5

1
t [s]

1.5

Response of Maglev forces (expended) (Test II)

Fig. 19.

0.5

1
t [s]

Response of Maglev forces (Test III)

1.5

method is proposed to control two counterpart Maglev systems,

simultaneously. In the second and third tests, the Maglev
system using this method has been tested. In this control
method, the simulation results show that the system has greater

V [mm/s]

10
0

stability and system response is faster.

-10
0

Fig. 20.

0.5

1
t [s]

1.5

REFERENCES
[1]

Lateralspeed of Maglev equipment (Test III)

0.5

[2]

i [A]

i1
i2
0

-0.5

Fig. 21.

[3]

0.5

1
t [s]

1.5

Currents of Maglev system (Test III)

VI.

[4]

[5]

CONCLUSION

This paper deals with control design of the Maglev guiding

system in linear elevator. The requirements of Maglev
equipment are rapidity and preciseness. It applies feedback
linearization in Maglev system, at first. This is the approach to
design a PID controller. In the first test, the Maglev system
using the described feedback linearization method (for
0 0 and FK (t ) 5000N ) has been simulated and the
simulation results have been shown. But, selecting a constant
value for FK (t ) is unrealistic. Therefore, a new PID control

[6]

[7]

[8]

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