3D Harmonic modeling of rotating permanent magnets for a PM-based planar actuator

A noval type of permanent magnet based planar actuator is proposed which consists of a permanent magnet mover which interacts with individually controllable permanent magnets in the stator. A state of levitation and actuation is obtained by mechanically altering the orientation of the stator magnets to control the forces and torques on the mover. In order to control and design the actuator, fast and accurate electromagnetic models are required. In this study, the harmonic modeling technique is applied for rotating and translating cuboidal and cylindrical permanent magnets and is compared to the equivalent charge model. The resulting magnetic scalar potential is in good agreement with FEM solutions and the harmonic model has shown computational benefit over the equivalent charge modeling technique.