4302 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 47, NO.

10, OCTOBER 2011

Control of Traction and Levitation of Linear Induction Motor Driven

by Power Source With Frequency Component Synchronous
With the Motor Speed
Toshimitsu Morizane, Kousuke Tsujikawa, and Noriyuki Kimura

Department of Electrical and Electronic Systems Engineering, Osaka Institute of Technology, Osaka 535-8585, Japan

Linear Induction Motor (LIM) has many applications. The maglev transportation system is the most popular application. The typ-
ical maglev transportation system has the traction system and levitation system separately. The LIM is used for the traction system.
The levitation magnets are implemented as the levitation system. We have developed a novel maglev system using the LIM without the
levitation components. In this system, the attractive force of the LIM can be used for the levitation control. In this paper, we propose
the novel control method of the thrust force and the attractive force of LIM driven by the power source with the frequency component
synchronous with the motor speed. In this control method, it is possible to apply the conventional vector control to the thrust force con-
trol of LIM. The frequency component synchronous with the motor speed does not generate the thrust force. Therefore the frequency
component synchronous with the motor speed is able to adjust the attractive force for the levitation without the influence on the thrust
force control. The controller becomes simpler by the proposed control method. We design the controller for the proposed maglev system.
The simulation results show the traction and levitation control of LIM are achieved by the proposed control method.
Index Terms—Linear induction motor (LIM), magnetic levitation, Maglev transportation system, vector control.

I. INTRODUCTION

T HE linear induction motor (LIM) has several merits,

including simple structure, direct drive, flexible mech-
anism, contact-less suspension, no emission of dust, and so
on [1]. Therefore, it has many applications. For example, the
maglev transportation system is the most popular application.
The LIM is used as the traction component in a maglev system
[2]–[6]. The typical maglev transportation system has an inde-
pendent traction system and levitation system [7]. The traction
and levitation are controlled respectively.
We have proposed a maglev system using a LIM without a Fig. 1. Typical maglev system and proposed maglev system (a) typical maglev
levitation component. The LIM generates the attractive force system; (b) proposed system.
and the thrust force. In this system, both forces of the LIM are
used. However, it is necessary to control the forces simultane- II. PROPOSED MAGLEV SYSTEM
ously and independently. We have proposed the use of a power
source with two different frequency components to control the A. Structure of Proposed Maglev System
forces. In this operation, the attractive force and the thrust force Fig. 1 shows the typical maglev system and the proposed ma-
are a sum of the forces generated by the each frequency compo- glev system. In the typical system, the traction and the levita-
nent. In a previous study, the characteristics of the forces used tion system are implemented separately. The LIM is used for the
some power sources including different frequency components traction system and the levitation magnet is used for the levita-
tion system. Therefore, the attractive force of the LIM affects the
[8]–[10]. In this paper, we propose that a frequency component
levitation system. However, the proposed maglev transporta-
synchronous with the motor speed is used as the one of the com- tion system has a LIM without a levitation magnet as shown
ponents. The controller becomes simple by applying the pro- in Fig. 1(b). The attractive force of the LIM is used for the levi-
posed control method. We design the controller tuned up by the tation force. In this proposed system, LIM has the unified func-
experimental results of LIM. We verify the control method of tion of traction and levitation. The proposed system is expected
the traction and the levitation of LIM by the simulation results. to have low cost, easy maintenance and compact structure.

B. Theory of Addition of the Attractive Force and Thrust

Manuscript received February 21, 2011; revised April 04, 2011 and April 06,
Force of the LIM
2011; accepted April 07, 2011. Date of current version September 23, 2011. In the proposed maglev system, it is necessary to control
Corresponding author: T. Morizane (e-mail: [email protected]).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
the attractive force and thrust force of the LIM simultaneously
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org. and independently. We have proposed a control method for the
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TMAG.2011.2142395 power source that has two different frequency components. It

0018-9464/$26.00 © 2011 IEEE

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 MORIZANE et al.: CONTROL OF TRACTION AND LEVITATION OF LINEAR INDUCTION MOTOR DRIVEN BY POWER SOURCE 4303

has a low frequency component and the high frequency compo-

nent. In this operation, the total attractive force and thrust force
are the sum of the forces generated by the low frequency com-
ponent and the high frequency component.
The -axis and -axis are set to the direction of the traction
and the levitation respectively. The attractive force and the
thrust force are calculated by the surface integral (1).

(1)

Fig. 2. Whole setup of the experimental system.

where are the flux densities of and -axis respectively,
is magnetic permeability, and is the considered surface.
When the LIM is driven by the power source with the two current including some different frequency components in order
frequency components, the low frequency component of the flux to control the forces.
density of y axis and the high frequency component of
the flux density are described as in (2). C. Frequency Component Synchronous With Motor Speed
We use a power source that includes the different frequency
components. It is based on the theory of addition of the forces in
(2) regards to the attractive force and the thrust force. We propose
the frequency component synchronous with the motor speed is
where is the amplitude of , is the amplitude of used as the one of the components. When the LIM is driven
, is the slip frequency of the low frequency component, in the frequency synchronous with the motor speed, the LIM
is the slip frequency of the high frequency component and generates only the attractive force because the slip is 0. It makes
are the phase angles, respectively. the force control of the LIM easy.
The time average of the total force generated by is We verify the characteristics of the forces generated by the
calculated as follows: power source including the frequency component synchronous
with the motor speed.

III. THE EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION

A. Experimental Equipment
The whole experimental system is shown as Fig. 2. PE-EX-
PERT III (Myway Plus Corp., Yokohama) is used for the
switching control of the voltage source inverter to generate the
two different frequency components. The experimental system
sets up a smoothing capacitor, the voltage source inverter,
LC filter and the LIM. The carrier frequency of the voltage
source inverter is 10 kHz. The cut off frequency of the LC
filter is set to 1.5 kHz. The protection resistance is protected
from short circuit, when it is driven in low frequency. Table I
shows the principle parameters of the LIM for the experimental
equipment. The secondary side consists of iron and aluminum.
The load cells measure the attractive force and thrust force. The
four load cells are located under the primary side and measure
the attractive force. The two load cells are located in front of
the primary side and measure the thrust force. The air gap is
(3)
5 mm.
where, is the time average force of the low frequency com-
B. Experimental Results
ponent, is the time average force of the high frequency
component, and time is long enough to calculate the average. We verified the characteristics of the attractive force and
According to the (3), the total force is the sum of the forces thrust force of LIM driven by the proposed power source. In
generated by the different frequency components of the flux this experiment, the power source has 10 Hz slip frequency
density. It is possible to control the flux density by the input component and equivalent frequency component synchronous
current. Therefore, the power source provides a sufficient input with the motor speed.
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 4304 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAGNETICS, VOL. 47, NO. 10, OCTOBER 2011

TABLE I
PRINCIPLE PARAMETERS OF THE LIM

Fig. 4. Characteristics of the thrust force of the LIM.

Fig. 3. Characteristics of the attractive force of the LIM.

Fig. 3 shows the characteristics of the attractive force. Each

mark of “10 Hz”, “Syn”, and “Syn+10 Hz” is the experimental
result in the case where the LIM is driven only by the 10 Hz
component, only the synchronous component, and the proposed
power source respectively. The mark of “calc” is the calculated
result by summing the forces indicated by the mark “10 Hz” and
“Syn”. The total attractive force is the sum of the force generated
by each of the components.
Fig. 4 shows the characteristics of the thrust force. Each mark
of “10 Hz”, “Syn”, and “Syn+10 Hz” is the experimental re- Fig. 5. Control system of the LIM using power source with frequency compo-
nent synchronous with mover speed.
sult in the case where the LIM is driven by the 10 Hz compo-
nent, only the synchronous component, and the proposed power
source. The mark of “calc” is the calculated result by summing which is synchronous with the motor speed, cannot generate
the forces indicated by the mark “10 Hz” and “Syn”. The thrust the thrust force . Therefore, the conventional vector
force is controlled by only the 10 Hz slip frequency component. control of the thrust force generated by the drive frequency
The figures indicate the forces are controllable independently component can be applied to control the total thrust force
and simultaneously by the proposed power source. for the traction control. The frequency component generates
the attractive force . The frequency component adjusts
IV. CONTROL OF TRACTION AND LEVITATION the total attractive force by the attractive force gener-
ated by the component.
A. Control System
The characteristics of the forces of LIM driven by the pro- B. Simulation Results and Discussion
posed power source are verified by the experimental results. The We verify the control performance by the simulation results.
control system of the LIM for the maglev system can be con- Fig. 6 shows the profile of the reference of the velocity and the
structed easily as shown in Fig. 5. The frequency component simulated velocity of LIM by the proposed control method. The
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 MORIZANE et al.: CONTROL OF TRACTION AND LEVITATION OF LINEAR INDUCTION MOTOR DRIVEN BY POWER SOURCE 4305

Fig. 8. Simulation result of drive frequency (not frequency component syn-

chronous with the motor speed).

Fig. 6. Simulation results of the velocity of LIM in traction control.

Fig. 9. Simulation results of the air gap of LIM in levitation control.

with motor speed. The proposed control method can control the
thrust force and attractive force of LIM simultaneously and in-
dependently. The simulation results verify the performance of
the proposed control.

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Authorized licensed use limited to: Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL). Downloaded on December 09,2024 at 18:41:47 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.