Basic Study for Achieving Stable Magnetic Levitation of a Steel Plate Irrespective of Its Thickness

Using magnetic levitation techniques to a process line for thin steel plates is very profitable. We have succeeded in the stable magnetic levitation of a steel plate with various thicknesses by using an optimal compensator. This compensator consists of three feedback coefficients (k(1), k(2), k(3)) designed for each thickness. The sets of (k(1), k(2), k(3)) have a border of stability in the space of (x, y, z) corresponding to (k(1), k(2), k(3)) and its border depends on the thickness of steel plate. In this study, we try to levitate various steel plates with different thicknesses each other, by using the identical compensator. And based on various experiments, we will show that the stable levitation can be performed even if we adopt the identical compensator to steel plates with various thicknesses.