Model predictive controllers for magnetic levitation systems

The paper presents the design and the implementation of two model predictive controllers (MPCs) for magnetic levitation systems. The presentation is focused on the position control of a sphere in a magnetic levitation system with two electromagnets laboratory equipment in order to test the proposed controllers. A state feedback control structure is first designed to stabilize the system. In order to ensure the zero steady-state control errors, the second controller is based on an MPC in the outer control loop. The autoregressive exogenous model corresponding to closed-loop state feedback control system is computed in order to develop the MPC. The simulation results are included to illustrate the performance of the position control systems.