Nonlinear Control of an Electromagnetic System Based on Exact Linearization and Sliding Mode Control

The present research project aims to apply two nonlinear control tools: exact linearization and sliding mode control, in the position control of a nonlinear system comprising an iron ball and an electromagnetic coil. Exact linearization (EL) has been used to generate a desired level in the current, and then the current acts like a current source for the electromagnetic coil considering that the system can be separated in a mechanical and electrical subsystem. Notably, we will need to follow this desired current because that current is required to maintain the ball's levitation. For that reason, we will use the sliding mode control in order to force the real current to track the desired current. Lyapunov stability will be used to validate the convergence of this tracking. The satisfactory performance of the controlled system has been verified by simulations in Matlab. However, the implementation, not shown in this paper, was performed using the DSP TMS 320LF2407, which is a powerful digital signal processor.