The Magnetic Levitation System (MLS) is a nonlinear, open-loop, unstable time varying frictionless dynamical system. The basic principle of MLS operation is to apply the voltage to an electromagnet to keep a ferromagnetic sphere levitated. Moreover, the sphere can follow a desired vertical position varying in time. The coil current is measured to explore identification and multi loop or nonlinear control strategies. To levitate the sphere a real-time controller is required. The equilibrium stage of two forces (the gravitational and electromagnetic) is maintained by the controller to keep the sphere in a desired distance from the magnet. The system is fully integrated with MATLAB/Simulink and operates in the real-time in MS Windows. The PC equipped with the RT-DAC/PCI I/O board communicates with the power interface. The tasks are as follows:
- Analysis of the system’s properties;
- Modeling of the system;
- Controller design;
- Execution of a real-time experiment and analysis of the results.