Design and Fabrication of a Non-contact Manipulator for Object Handling using Magnetic Levitation and PID Controller

Magnetic levitation systems are recently used for contactless transportation of objects. In magnetic levitation, the object can be levitated by actively controlling the magnetic field based on the measured air gap between the object and the levitator. These systems are affected from the velocity of moving objects, the distance of suspended object from magnetic core and intensity of magnetic field as well as dynamic loads. Environmental noises cause instability in these systems. In this paper, a contactless transportation system has been proposed for vertical transportation of a metal sphere. PID controller was used to stabilize the transportation. The performance of this transportation system at different vertical speeds was analyzed. Results show that the suggested method could precisely monitor sudden moves. The proposed magnetic suspension system can maintain the stability of suspended object at the maximum velocity of 4.53m/s in upward movement.