Stator Magnet Analysis for a Novel Magnetic Levitation Actuator

A novel planar actuator that utilizes mechanically driven stator magnet arrays to levitate a permanent magnet (PM) mover is proposed. A state of levitation and actuation is obtained by mechanically altering the orientation of the stator magnets to control the forces and torques on the mover. This study analyzes cylindrical stator magnets, which are used to create decoupled sinusoidal traveling magnetic fields, which allow relatively conventional PM mover designs to be operated in the actuator. This article presents a stator design framework for the minimization of the total harmonic distortion (THD) while maximizing the peak of the first harmonic in the traveling wave. This reduces the design space and enables conventional mover topologies to operate with the established stator.