Adaptive Safe Backstepping for Collaborative Levitation Control of Maglev Trains with Unknown Mass

Maglev trains are levitated by magnetic forces to maintain a desired air gap between gudieway and magnets. Although every two magnets are mechanically coupled via a levitation bogie, the existing controllers are usually designed only for each individual magnet, which may result in unstable air gaps or levitation failures. Differently, this paper proposes an adaptive safe backstepping scheme to collaboratively control two magnets of the same bogie. In particular, safety constraints are introduced to adaptive backstepping control via quadratic programs, which ensures the air gap within a permissible range and significantly reduces overshoots. Finally, simulation results validate the effectiveness of the proposed collaborative controller.