Design of Model Reference Control for Maglev Systems Using LMIs
Electromagnetic levitation (Maglev) systems offer significant advantages across various industrial applications. However, the design of feedback control laws for such systems is challenging because, in practice, not all the state variables are accessible. In this work, we investigate a model-reference control strategy to regulate the position of a levitating object by modulating the electromagnetic force acting on it by using only the position of the levitated object and the electromagnet current, which are directly measurable. The regulator design is based on a linearized model of the system dynamics and incorporates an observer-based controller. To synthesize controller and observers, we employ a linear matrix inequality (LMI) framework, which allows for a systematic and computationally efficient design procedure. The resulting regulator is fully linear and is obtained by solving the proposed set of LMIs. The effectiveness of the controller is demonstrated through simulation studies, which illustrate its ability to maintain stable and accurate levitation performance.