Control characteristics of passive maglev transport system

Recent OLED display manufacturing process requires non-contact conveyor systems which do not generate particles for increased productivity. To avoid supplying power and heating in vacuum, a passive magnetic levitation (maglev) transport system can be a promising solution because it has neither sensor nor actuator in moving carriers and all active components are installed on the ground. In this paper, we deal with the design and control characteristics of the passive maglev transport system. The levitation and guidance system has redundancy and needs to be properly switched. The proposed guidance system can generate bi-directional motion using one electromagnet and the guidance system is designed and analyzed in details using FEM tools. The control characteristics were analyzed through impact tests using the manufactured passive maglev transport system.