Magnetic force modelling and nonlinear switched control of an electromagnetic actuator

This paper presents the magnetic force modelling of a typical electromagnetic valve actuator system. In this work, the objective is to take into account two important features: the magnetic saturation phenomenon which is a physical problem and the positivity constraint of the magnetic force. Those issues are addressed with a switch modelling approach. The first proposed control law proves the stability in a limited set and the second one ensure the global stability of the closed loop system. For both controllers, the main part of the control consists of a two steps backstepping control, a first controller regulates the mechanical part depending on the expression of the magnetic force. And a second controller controls the coil current and the magnetic force implicitly. An illustrative example shows the effectiveness of the approach.