Robust Air-Gap Control of Superconducting-Hybrid MagLev Intelligent Conveyor System in Smart Factory

In this paper, a novel control method is proposed for superconducting-hybrid magnetic levitation systems applied in conveyor manufacturing facilities. Recently, magnetic levitation systems are variously researched not only for high-speed transportation but also manufacturing process requiring the dust-free condition. The proposed controller consists of the inner feedback compensator and set-point error controller. The structure of the controller with convex set between conventional proportional-derivative-integral controllers guarantees the performances and robustness of the conventional controller and makes it possible to consider the additional properties that can be converted into linear matrix inequality constraints. The control factors are determined by solving the optimization problem with linear matrix inequalities to be expressed for time-domain specifications such as overshoot, rise time, and settling time and control input bound. The effectiveness of the proposed controller is verified by the simulation and finite-element analysis.