Adaptive Robust Nonlinear Control of a Magnetic Levitation System via
DSC Technique

Abstract

This paper considers the position tracking problem of a popular magnetic levitation system in the presence of modeling errors due to uncertainties of physical parameters. The recently developed dynamic surface control (DSC) technique is modified and applied to the system under study, to overcome the problem of “explosion of terms” associated with the backstepping design procedure. Input-to-state stability (ISS) property is ensured by the robust nonlinear damping terms whereas the ultimate control error bounds are made sufficiently small by the adaptive laws. Experimental results are included to show the excellent position tracking performance of the designed control system.