Employing chaos tools and methods in magnetic levitation

Magnetic levitation by tuned circuits is a known method for freely suspending ferromagnetic objects. Though the method yields a relatively simple system which includes a surprisingly small number of components, it exhibits complicated dynamics. As a result, stabilisation of these levitators is a complex task. It is shown that, by employing chaos theory and by applying methods of control developed in association with chaotic systems, the stabilisation of the present levitator is made simpler, and can be achieved at lower source frequencies. This reduction of source frequency is shown to be of practical value. Furthermore, a measure known among chaos researchers (the correlation dimension) for assessing the complexity of chaotic systems has been found to be valuable for evaluating and developing the novel stabilisation method