An experimental study on PID tuning methods for active magnetic bearing systems

Abstract

A key challenge in active magnetic bearing (AMB) applications is the design of control systems that maintain stability in the presence of external loads and disturbances. The most commonly used controller for AMB systems is the PID control, whose design involves tuning of the controller coefficients. Different systematic tuning methods have been developed and reported on in the literature. This paper examines some of these tuning methods in AMB control systems. Experiments are carried out on an AMB test rig to compare the performance of the closed-loop systems resulting from these tuning methods in terms of steady state accuracy and robustness.