A Novel High Precision Electromagnetic Suspension for Long-Stroke Movement and Its Performance Evaluation

Abstract – A new type of high precision electromagnetic suspension (EMS) which can support heavy tray along long stroke rail is proposed in this paper. Compared with the conventional EMS, the suggested moving-core typed EMS has the levitation electromagnets (EMs) on the fixed rail. This scheme has high load capability caused by iron-core and enables simple tray structure. Also it does not have precision degradation caused by heat generation from EMs, which is a drawback of conventional EMS. With these merits, the proposed EMS can be an optimal contactless linear bearing in next generation flat panel display (FPD) manufacturing process if the ability of long stroke movement is proved. So a special Section Switching Algorithm (SSA) is derived from the resultant force and moment equations of the levitated tray which enables long stroke movement of the tray. In order to verify the feasibility of the suggested SSA, a simple test-setup of the EMS with 2 Section-changes is made up and servo-controlled in the simulation and experiment. The simulation shows the perfect changeover the EMs, and the experiment shows overall control performance of under ±40 μm gap deviations. These results reveal that the newly suggested contactless linear bearing can simultaneously achieve high load capability and precision gap control as well as long stroke