Fuzzy bang–bang relay control of a single-axis active magnetic bearing system

Active magnetic bearings (AMB) are presently being utilized in various classes of rotating machinery. Although the rotor-AMB systems are open loop unstable, they are easily stabilized using feedback control schemes of which the PID controller is the most commonly used. The PID controller is however only effective at the vicinity of the rotor’s equilibrium position where the dynamics of the rotor-AMB system is linearized. Significant deviation of the rotor’s motion from this equilibrium position may occur due to large imbalance forces. In this situation, the nonlinearity in AMBs, which arises from the relationship between the electromagnetic force, coil current and air gap, may render the PID controller ineffective. For the control of nonlinear systems, artificial intelligence techniques such as fuzzy and hybrid techniques are effective. In this paper, a new fuzzy controller is proposed for the control of a single-axis AMB system. This controller is based on the bang–bang scheme, which is an old but effective technique to control nonlinear systems in optimal time. The performance of the proposed integrated fuzzy bang–bang relay controller (FBBRC) was found to be superior to that of the optimized PD controller and the conventional fuzzy logic controller. Comparison of the FBBRC with the fuzzy logic controller cascaded with a hard limiter (FBBC) relay revealed almost equal performance. High frequency chattering was however observed in the steady-state response of the FBBC. Such chattering is known to cause instability and distortion in the amplifiers that are used to supply current to the magnetic bearing actuators.