Design, construction and control of an electromagnetic guidance system

The guidance system is a key system in high-speed Magnetic Levitation (MAGLEV) train to keep the vehicle on the track during travel when it will tend to run aside and depart from the center of guide-way. Guidance magnets are mainly accomplished by using two types of magnetic forces either attractive or repulsive force. In this work, a proposed structure for a prototype of an electromagnetic guidance system is designed, studied and controlled. Simulation and analysis of the system model are derived based on two dimensional (2D) Finite Element Analysis (FEA) utilizing FEMM software as a concurrent with the analytical approach to fine-tune the design process. The mathematical modeling of the system is developed to find transfer function and state space models. The system is hardly non-linear and open loop unstable. It was linearized around the operating points using Taylor series expansion. Based on the linear and nonlinear models several controllers of phase-lead, PID controllers and complete state feedback controller based on pole-placement technique are designed respectively to control the system. MATLAB, Simulink is provided for simulation and for plotting the results. In the experimental setup Arduino mega 2560 is used as a digital controller with the system to implement the Fuzzy PID control algorithm to put the system at the desired position. The performance of the controller is tested to investigate the robustness of the proposed control system against the external disturbance force. Consequently, the steady state error is minimized in a certain set position.