Proportional-integral gain-scheduling control of a magnetic levitation system

The paper presents the design of a proportional-integral gain-scheduling control for the position control of the sphere in a magnetic levitation system laboratory equipment. The unstable and nonlinear mathematical model of the process is linearized at seven operating points. A state feedback control structure is first designed to stabilize the process. Proportional-integral and proportional-integral gain-scheduling control structures are next designed to ensure zero steady-state control error and the switching between the proportional-integral controllers separately designed for the linearized mathematical models. Some results measured after real-time experiments are presented for validation.