Modeling and design of a size and mass reduced magnetically levitated planar positioner

Magnetic lévitation technology is a promising solution to achieve ultra-precision motion. This paper presents a design of maglev planar positioner with less size and mass, compared with existing designs. The maglev planar positioner employs four groups of low-order moving magnet linear motors (MMLM) to provide force, and the Halbach PM array in each MMLM contains only one magnetic pole. As a result, the size and mass of the proposed maglev planar positioner is significantly reduced. Due to the inaccuracy of existing force models in predicting such a low-order MMLM, a novel modeling approach is introduced to derive the analytical force model in this paper. Finally, a prototype of this MMLM with one magnetic pole Halbach PM array is developed, and the experiment is conducted to validate the accuracy of the proposed force modeling approach.