Received October 31, 2017, accepted December 19, 2017, date of publication December 25, 2017,

date of current version February 14, 2018.

Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/ACCESS.2017.2787052

Decentralized PID Control Design for Magnetic

Levitation Systems Using Extremum Seeking
QIANG CHEN 1 , YING TAN2 , (Senior Member, IEEE), JIE LI1 ,
AND IVEN MAREELS2 , (Fellow, IEEE)
1 College of Mechatronics Engineering and Automation, National University of Defense Technology, Changsha 410073, China
2 Melbourne School of Engineering, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC 3010, Australia
Corresponding author: Qiang Chen (Chen_NUDT@outlook.com)
This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China under Grant 2016YFB1200600.
The work of Q. Chen was supported by the China Scholarship Council.

ABSTRACT A decentralized proportional–integral–differential (PID) control structure has been always the
first option for magnetic levitation systems due to its model-free nature as well as the simplicity. It is very
challenging to tune PID parameters for each suspension point to ensure that the closed-loop system is less
sensitive to uncertainties/disturbances. Even though, by a large number of experiments, a reasonably good
PID control parameter set can be obtained to levitate a single suspension point for a given set point, these
parameters are very sensitive when the set point changes or the decentralized PID controller is applied to
the half bogie where coupling exists, strong oscillations will be observed and retuning of parameters is
needed. This paper utilizes the extremum seeking (ES) method to tune PID parameters on-line to improve
the steady-state performance of the system with few oscillations. A ‘‘sampled-data’’ structure is used to
obtain a moving window approximation of the steady-state behavior, leading to a discrete-time ES tuning
for the decentralized PID parameters. By using projection method, the tuning parameters are constrained
in a compact set, in which the stability can be guaranteed and the optimal performance can be achieved.
Experiments have shown the effectiveness of the proposed method.

INDEX TERMS Magnetic levitation systems, decentralized PID control, extremum seeking for PID tuning.

I. INTRODUCTION used [4] due to its simplicity in design, parameter tuning, and
A Magnetic Levitation (Maglev) train uses electromagnetic implementation. And in practice, model-free decentralized
forces to stably levitate the train above the track at the given PID controllers are widely used in the EMS systems [5]–[7].
set-point. Compared with traditional wheel rail trains, Maglev This work tries to achieve a good steady-state perfor-
trains offer many advantages such as safety, comfort, low mance to levitate a Small-Scale Magnetic Levitation Plat-
noise, small turning radius and strong climbing ability [1]. form (SSMLP), as shown in Fig. 1.
Among different design methods, ElectroMagnetic Suspen-
sion (EMS) structure has been a popular way. It has been used
in Transrapid, HSST, CMS and so on [2], [3].
Any EMS system is open-loop unstable. Thus the control
design plays an important role in order to regulate the gap
at the desired set-point. It is worthwhile to highlight that the
model for the EMS system is highly nonlinear and uncer-
tain even for a single suspension point. As the number of
suspension points increases, the complexity of model will
increase dramatically due to mechanical coupling among
suspension points, making it infeasible to design a model-
based controller for Maglev systems. A decentralized control
structure, which implies that each suspension point has its FIGURE 1. Small scale maglev experiment platform.
own control loop and typically all suspension points share This SSMLP is a full bogie structure with EMS levi-
the identical control structure and parameters, is thus widely tation structure. A bogie consists of two half bogies with
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FIGURE 2. Structure schematic diagram of the bogie.
two suspension points located at each corner of the half bogie.
Each suspension point has its own control loop including
sensors to measure the gap and the current, signal processing
blocks and power converters. A schematic diagram of the
bogie is shown in Fig. 2. This SSMLP has some unique
features as well.
1) The track is very thin and is fixed on the top of a support
structure, which is placed on the ground. This mechanic
setting is prone to vibrations due to the fact that the
ground is not absolutely flat.
2) Two half bogies are connected by rigid beams. Thus
four suspension points are mechanically coupled.
3) Bogie and cabin is connected by springs, there is no
well-design secondary system as in many other EMS
systems.
In a word, compared with commercial products in mar-
ket, the mechanical structure and electrical systems of this
SSMLP are on purposely ‘‘badly’’ designed in order to serve
as a good testbed for testing various control algorithms.
In this decentralized controller setting, a PID controller
has been used to achieve the desired set-point, though the
parameters of PID controllers are tuned by trial-and-error
methods. However, during debugging, it is found that these
tuned parameters are quite sensitive to disturbances, set-point
changes, and environment changes. Moreover, the stability
region for PID parameters is relatively small. It is often
observed in the experiments that vibrations would appear.
It is noted that though the levitation is most challenging
part of designing a control system for the Maglev system,
keeping a good steady-state performance is always required
in Maglve transportation systems as it is closely related to the
comfortableness of the passengers.
Extremum Seeking (ES) is a model-free on-line opti-
mization technique [8]. It can seek an optimal input
for an input-to-steady-output mapping using input output
measurements [9], [10]. It has been applied to tune param-
eters of PID iteratively by using the performance mea-
sured from the last trial [11], [12]. Various performance
requirements over a fixed time period were also discussed.
Different from [11] and [12], this paper focuses on improving
the steady-state performances such as reducing the tracking
error and the vibrations, which are all related to ensure the
comfort ride for passengers. Instead of repeating experiments
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Q. Chen et al.: Decentralized PID Control Design for Maglev Systems
to improve transient responses as in [11] and [12], the ES
loops start to work when the closed loop system already
reaches the steady-state. Hence parameters of PID are tuned
on-line to minimize the tracking error as well as to eliminate
the vibrations in the steady-state. Several techniques have
been used to ensure the stability of the closed-loop as well
as achieving an optimal steady-state behaviours.
• In order to ensure the stability of the closed-loop, the sta-
bility region obtained from a large amount experiments
has been used in the tuning of PID parameters. A well-
known projection method is used to ensure that PID
parameters are still within the stability region.
• A moving window is used to approximate the steady-
state behaviour and generating a sampled cost function
representing the averaged behaviour of a given time
window. This will lead to a discrete-time ES tuning for
the decentralized PID parameters. With an hold used,
it is shown that the steady-state behavior can reach to a
small neighbourhood of the optimal one by tuning PID
parameters carefully.
• In order to achieve a good convergence, the initial choice
of PID parameters is obtained from the trial-and-error
method.
Experimental results for half bogie show that the pro-
posed on-line tuning for decentralized PID algorithm indeed
achieves better steady-state responses, which are less sensi-
tive to disturbances and set-point changes.
The rest of paper is organized as follows. Section 2 pro-
vides background for decentralized PID control design
including the model for single suspension point. The auto-
tuning PID based on ES is introduced in Section 3 followed
by experimental results in Section 4. Section 5 summarizes
the paper.
II. DECENTRALIZED CONTROL DESIGN
A. MODELS FOR SINGLE SUSPENSION POINT
In order to understand the characteristics of the Maglev sys-
tem, a first-principle based model is needed. As the decen-
tralized controller is used, only the single suspension point
model is considered. The following assumptions are needed
to simplify the modelling procedure.
1) Leakage flux can be ignored.
2) The magnetic saturation can be ignored.
3) Magneto-resistance in core and track can be ignored.
4) Without considering the motions of rolling, yawing,
pitching between electromagnets and the track.
5) Without considering the elastic vibration or dynamic
deformation of the track.
The schematic diagram of a single suspension point is
represented in Fig. 3.
The parameters of the SSMLP is shown in Table 1.
Denoting δ(t) as the gap between electromagnet and track,
u(t) as the voltage applied to the system. The notion i(t) is the
current of electromagnet coil and F(t) is the corresponding
electromagnetic force. The mass of a single suspension point
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Q. Chen et al.: Decentralized PID Control Design for Maglev Systems

the bogie as 4 independent masses and many assumptions are

FIGURE 3. The Schematic diagram of suspension point system.
TABLE 1. Structural parameters of the SSMLP.
made.
Remark 1: Although better models including the half
bogie model and the full bogie model [13] are available,
these models are still, might be better, approximations of the
Maglev system. The overall system consists of the dynamics
of the track, the secondary suspension system, the chopper
and the power electronics. Each component is highly nonlin-
ear. Thus it is very challenging to build a relatively accurate
model so that the well-developed model-based control algo-
rithms are applicable. ◦
In practical commercialized Maglev systems, simple
model-free decentralized PID control algorithms are widely
used. The selection of PID parameters is usually by trial-and-
error methods. Large amount experiments are needed to find
a reasonably good parameters for a given set-point. In our
experiments, it is observed that the tuned PID parameters are
not robust with respect to changes of set-point or other uncer-
tainties. Vibrations always happen under such situations. This
paper tries to find an optimal set of PID parameters that can
achieve the best steady-state performance.

B. DECENTRALIZED PID CONTROLLER

m1 needs to balance a quarter of the overall weight of the The control objective for the decentralized PID controller is
bogie. to track the desired set-point r with no steady-state error.
1 Though the control input is voltage, the current through the
(m + M ).
m1 = (1) electromagnet coil generates the magnetic force. Due to the
4
influence of the coil inductance, the change of the current
According to Newton’s second Law, it has
always have a lag behind that of the voltage change. More-
m1 δ̈(t) = m1 g − F(t), (2) over, it is desired to have a quick current so that there will be
enough magnetic force to balance the gravity as the current
where the electromagnetic force F(t) can be expressed starts from zero. Therefore, a cascaded control [14], [15] is
as [13]: designed, as shown in Fig. 4.
µ0 AN 2 i(t) 2
 
F(t) = . (3)
2 δ(t)
On the other hand, the control input u satisfies the following
condition [13]:
u(t) µ0 AN 2 µ0 AN 2 i(t)
= Ri(t) + i̇(t) − δ̇(t), (4) FIGURE 4. Block diagram of cascade PID control.
2 2δ(t) 2δ 2 (t)
With the consideration of the cascaded control struc-
The state-space representation of the single-point model is ture, the single-point model (5) can be re-written as inter-
thus obtained as connected two subsystems 61 and 62 .
 
x2
µ0 AN 2 i(t) 2
   
0
 g− 0
 µ AN 2 x
3
 61 : δ̈(t) = g − , (7)
ẋ =  [ ]2  +
 0 
 u (5) 2m1 δ(t)
2m1 x1 1
The input is current i(t) and the output is gap δ(t). The PID
   
 x2 x3 2R  x 1
− x1 x3 µ0 AN 2
x1 µ0 AN 2 controller is designed for (61 ).
 
y= 1 0 0 x (6) e(t) = r − δ(t) (8)
Z t
where Iexp (t) = kp · e(t) + kd · ė(t) + ki · e(τ ) dτ, (9)
T T 0
= δ(t) δ̇(t) .
 
x = x1 x2 x3 i(t)
where Iexp (t) is the expected current for (61 ), and the param-
A single-point model is thus obtained. It is a third-order eters kp , ki , kd are proportional, integral and derivative gains
nonlinear system with the output y as the gap and input u is respectively. The outer-loop controller will drive the gap to
the voltage. obviously, this model is too simplistic, as it views the desired set-point.

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 Q. Chen et al.: Decentralized PID Control Design for Maglev Systems

On the other hand, 62 :

δ̇(t)i(t) 2R 1
62 : i̇(t) = − δ(t)i(t) + δ(t)u(t).
δ(t) µ0 AN 2 µ0 AN 2
(10)
The input is voltage u(t) and the output is current i(t), which
is the input of 61 . A P controller is designed for (62 ). It takes
the following form:
eI (t) = Iexp (t) − i(t) (11)
u(t) = kc · ei (t), (12)
where the parameter kc is the gain of the inner-loop. The faster
inner-loop will drive the current quickly to desired reference
current to generate enough magnetic force.
Usually, the inner loop gain kc is firstly selected to ensure
fast enough current response speed. For example, in the
experiments of the SSMLP, kc = 50, the response time of
current loop is about 10ms. Then a trial-and-error method has
been used to tune PID parameters for single suspension point
using a large number of experiments for levitating a single
point.
After experiments, a good parameter set is thus obtained:
kp = 2000, ki = 0.1, and kd = 20. As can be seen in Fig. 5,
a reasonable tracking performance is obtained when the set-
point r = 6mm and r = 4mm for suspension point 1. From
a large amount of experiments, we have obtained a set of
reasonable PID parameters that can ensure the boundedness
of tracking errors as well as the boundedness of control
input. This set will be used later to ensure the boundedness FIGURE 5. Experiment results of suspension point 1 using cascaded PID
of trajectories of the SSMLP when searching an optimal parameters obtained by trial-and-error (single-point). (a) Setting
PID parameter set. It is noted that as the SSMLP is open- expectation gap to 6mm. (b) Setting expectation gap to 4mm.

loop unstable, limiting the search space of the PID param-

eters is very important to prevent unstable behaviour from
happening.
Due to mechanic coupling between suspension point 1 and
suspension point 2, even there is no current applied to sus-
pension point 2, it is also levitated, though it could not reach
the desired set-point. Moreover, it is notices that the initial
position of suspension point 1 and suspension point 2 are
δ1,0 = 10.2mm and δ2,0 = 9.8mm respectively when both of
them are at rest on the same track. Obviously, the mechanic
coupling is strong. Besides, due to the uneven distribution
of gravity and other mechanical and electrical differences
between these suspension points. Thus it is not surprising
that the tuned PID parameters are not robust when more dis-
turbances coming in such as the set-point changes as shown
in experiments. More precisely, as the parameters are well-
tuned for suspension point 1, the performance of suspension
point 1 can be ensured when set-point changes. However,
when these parameters applied to suspension point 2, the set-
point changes from r = 6mm to r = 4mm, vibrations happen
at suspension point 2, leading to oscillations at suspension
point 1 as well, as shown in Fig. 6.
Similar vibrations can be observed from experiments when
half bogie (two suspension points with two cascaded PID con-
trollers for both suspension point 1 and suspension point 2) is
levitated in the presence of set-point changes or disturbance
happens.
These experiments clearly suggest that as the overall
system is too complex, a simple cascaded PID controller
might not track well in a large region of interests even
though the uniform boundedness of the gap can be ensured.
As vibrations are undesired steady-state behaviours, it is
important to find a better set of cascaded PID parame-
ters to remove the vibrations and achieve a better tracking.
As the model cannot be used, a data-driven method is thus
needed to find an optimal set of parameters. It is noted
that to simplify our analysis, only PID parameters are tuned
on-line for the given performance indexes. The kc in the
inner loop is kept as a constant as experiments have shown
that the performance of the SSMLP is not sensitive to this
parameter.
III. DECENTRALIZED PID CONTROL DESIGN BASED ON
EXTREMUM SEEKING
A. AUTO-TUNING PID USING EXTREMUM SEEKING
Killingsworth and Krstic [11], [12] proposed an auto-tuning
PID method using ES algorithm in order to achieve some
optimal performances that are closely related to overshoot

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Q. Chen et al.: Decentralized PID Control Design for Maglev Systems

B. DECENTRALIZED OPTIMAL PID BASED ON EXTREMUM

SEEKING
Let θ = [θ1 , θ3 , θ3 ]T = [kp , ki , kd ]T , the following cost
function for each suspension point is proposed:
Z t+T
1
J (θ ) = lim sup (α1 e2 (τ ) + α2 ė2 (τ ))dτ (13)
T t→∞ t
where T is called a sampling period. The positive parameters
(α1 , α2 ) are weighting coefficients between the tracking error
and vibrations.
Remark 2: As the measurement e(t) is very small while
ė(t) can be quite large due to vibrations, the weight α1 and α2
can be used to normalize the tracking error and its derivative.
Different choices of α1 and α2 will lead to slightly different
performance. Due to space limitation, this paper will not
discuss the effect of performance when these two parameters
change. How to choose these two parameters in a systematic
way will be our future work. ◦
The cost function (13) is a static mapping of tun-
ing parameter
n θ. On the other hand, denoting o the set
S := (kp , ki , kd ) [k p , k̄p ] × [k i , k̄i ] × [k d , k̄d ] .

As clearly indicated in Section II, when PID tuning param-
eters are in this set, the cost function J (θ) is always bounded,
i.e., unstable performance cannot happen.
Although there exist various modelling uncertainties and
measurement noises, the closed-loop system can be re-written
as

FIGURE 6. Experiment results of suspension point 2 using cascaded PID

ẋ = f (x, θ)
parameters for suspension point 1. (a) Setting expectation gap to 6mm. y = J (θ). (14)
(b) Setting expectation gap to 4mm.

Next it is assumed that the optimal set of parameters exists as

shown in Assumption 1
and rise time. By repeating the experiments of step response, Assumption 1: There exists a unique θ ∗ ∈ S such that the
the performance of a fixed finite interval is recorded and will cost function (13) coming from the system (14) is minimized,
be used to tune PID parameter for the next trial. A discrete- i.e.,
time ES algorithm was implemented until the optimal PID
parameters for the given cost are obtained. It is noted that ∇(θ ∗ ) = 0, ∀θ ∈ S (15)
the role of ES in [11] and [12] is to improve the transient ψ ∇ J (θ )ψ < 0, ∀ψ ∈ S.
T 2 ∗
(16)
response. It is highlighted that the cost J (θ ) cannot be measured on-
It is noted that the proposed auto-tuning PID cannot line. Hence, the following measurable cost is used:
directly applied to our problem. In the levitation of SSMLP, 1 (k+1)T
Z
the transient response is not the major consideration in the Jk (θ) = (α1 e2 (τ ) + α2 ė2 (τ ))dτ (17)
T kT
design. In the major commercial Maglev transportation sys-
tems, the transient response time is always much shorter than As lim sup Jk (θ) = J (θ), thus Jk (θ) can approximate the cost
the steady-state response. A good steady-state performance is k→∞
J (θ ) when k is sufficiently large.
always needed as it is related to the comfort of the ride, which The following projection operator [18], [19] is used for any
is one of the key design factors in Maglev transportation θ ∈ R.
systems. Moreover, vibrations always happen during steady- 
state due to unexpected disturbances coming from set-point θ̄ if θ > θ̄

changes, environment changes, self-excited vibration [16] Proj(θ, θ, θ̄) = θ if θ ≤ θ ≤ θ̄ (18)
and other factors [17]. 

θ if θ < θ
Hence, the goal of ES algorithm is to find an PID parameter
set to achieve an optimal steady-state performance, which is a for any given θ < θ̄.
balance between minimizing the tracking error and minimiz- For each suspension point, on-line PID tuning using ES is
ing the vibrations. shown in Fig. 7.

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FIGURE 7. An on-line PID tuning for SSMLP with ES.
The updating law in closed-loop can be described as
ςn (k) = Hn · ςn (k − 1) + Jk (θ(k)) − Jk−1 (θ(k − 1))
ηn (k) = ςn (k) · sin(ωn k)
σn (k) = Ln · σjn (k − 1) + (1 − Ln ) · ηjn (k − 1)
θ̂n (k) = θ̂n (k − 1) − γn · σn (k − 1)
 
θn (k) = Proj θ̂n (k) + an · sin(ωn k), θ n , θ̄n ,
where the cost Jk (·) is defined in (17) and n = 1, 2, 3.
It is noted that by using ‘‘sampled-data’’-like structure,
a discrete-time ES is used. The notion ‘‘k’’ is the number
of iterations. As three parameters are tuned on-line, three ES
loops are used. The dither signal an sin(ωn k) has different fre-
quency ωn and amplitude an to ensure the enough persistent
excitation condition. Three high-pass filters and three low-
pass filters are used with their corresponding tuning parame-
ters. The tuning parameters γn are positive small parameters
as well.
Denoting the parameters θ 0 = [kp,0 , ki,0 , kd,0 ]T ∈ S,
which is obtained from the trial-and-error tuning such that
one suspension point can levitate to a neighbourhood of the
desired set point, though oscillations might happen.
The following theorem show that the proposed on-line PID
tuning can reach to a neighbourhood of the optimal solution.
Theorem 1: Assume that Assumption 1 holds the cost
function (13) coming from the system (14). Let ν, α1 , and α2
be positive constants. Let ωn is selected such that ωn 6=
ωj , ∀n, j = 1, 2, 3, n 6 = j. Then here exists a∗ > 0 such that
for every an ∈ (0, a∗ ), n = 1, 2, 3, there exists γn∗ = γn∗ (an )
such that for any γn ∈ (0, γn∗ ), such that the trajectories of the
closed-loop system (19) satisfy:
Q. Chen et al.: Decentralized PID Control Design for Maglev Systems
• Assuming that for a given θ, J (θ) (instead of Jk (θ)) is
measurable. By using the proof technique from discrete-
time ES [20] and using non-local stability analysis
method [10], it is not difficult to show that semi-global
practical convergence to the optimal parameter θ ∗ . The
role of projection is to show the boundedness of the cost
function.
• By using the closeness between J (θ ) and Jk (θ) when
k → ∞, we can conclude the inequality (20).
This completes the proof. ◦
Remark 3: As discussed in [10], the ES algorithm pro-
posed is a ‘‘gradient-decent’’ like algorithm. The step size
of gradient is related to the amplitude of an while δn plays
an important role in averaging analysis. It represents how
close between the averaged trajectories and actual trajectories
would be.
Remark 4: Different from [21], only a static mapping is
considered. Thus the singular perturbation technique [22] is
no longer needed. Hence the convergence speed is relatively
fast. As discussed in [23], the higher dither frequency will
lead to a faster convergence speed. However, when a large
frequency is selected, it will affect the computation of ėi as
it will have very large cost function. Although by tuning a
sufficiently small α2 relatively to α1 , it is possible to obtain
the fast convergence, the small vibration might still exist as
the cost function (17) weights less in terms of vibrations.
(19) As in the setting of the SSMLP, it is desired to have less
vibrations. In this work, the frequency of dither signal is
selected to be lower, leading to a slower convergence. Obvi-
ously there is a design trade-off between the convergence
speed and the performance. Different applications might have
different balances. ◦
Remark 5: Instead of using the exact same PID parame-
ter in the classic decentralized control design, the proposed
method use the exact same tuning parameters of ES for
each suspension point with the possibility of having differ-
ent PID parameters. As long as a local optimal parameter
set exists for each suspension point, the ES algorithm can
find it. ◦
Remark 6: Although Theorem 1 shows the convergence
when the iteration number goes to infinity, usually, the updat-
ing law will stop if |Jk (θ )−Jk−1 (θ)| ≤  for some pre-defined
threshold  > 0. ◦
Remark 7: It is worthwhile to highlight that though this
decentralized auto-tuning or on-line PID control algorithm is
designed for the SSMLP, it can be applied to the commercial
Maglev transport systems when the different conditions of
tracks, change of loads and self-excited vibration happen.
Usually, under these changes, PID parameters might have
to be re-tuned or an extra block (model-based or model-
free) is needed to improve the performance. With the pro-
lim sup θ(k) − θ ∗  ≤ ν.
 
(20) posed algorithm, as the PID parameter are tuned on-line,
k→∞ as long as the changes are slowly time-varying, it is always
Sketch of Proof: The convergence analysis of the proposed possible to find an optimal parameter set under the current
ES consists of the following steps. situation. ◦

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IV. EXPERIMENTS RESULTS

A. SINGLE POINT EXPERIMENTS
Due to space limitation, this paper will not present dif-
ferent experimental results for different sets of parameters.
It is noted that the different combinations of tuning param-
eters have been tested. What presented here is the best
observed performance. However, we will share our tuning
experiences.
 From a large amount of experiments, we have S :=
(kp , ki , kd ) |[500, 2500] × [0.0001, 0.5] × [10, 25] .
Noting that e(t) is relatively small as the working range for
the gap is within [0, 11mm] and ė(t) can be very large if vibra-
tions happen, α1 is set to be relatively larger than α2 . A simple
normalization technique is used in the experiments to make
e(t) and ė(t) are compatible by selecting α1 and α2 . That is,
α1 e(t) and α2 ė(t) are in the similar ranges. In the experiments,
α1 = 10000 and α2 = 100.
In the experiments, the sampling period T is selected to be
1 second. Obviously, when a larger sampling period is used,
the cost function Jk (·) will be in a larger range, the step size
of the ES algorithms has to tuned relatively large, leading to
a relatively fast convergence speed and less computational
cost, but with a larger ultimate bound. On the other hand, if a
smaller T is used, it requires more computations. It also needs
smaller tuning parameters with a relatively slow convergence
speed and a smaller ultimate bound. In this experiments,
the sampling period T is selected to be 1 second to achieve
the desired performance. FIGURE 8. Experiment results of suspension point 2 with r = 4mm.
With the consideration of eliminating the vibrations,
the dither frequency is selected to be small. In the exper-
iments, ω1 = π8 , ω2 = 12 π
, and ω3 = 16 π
. The dither
amplitudes are set to be relatively small. As kp ∈ [500, 2500], B. HALF BOGIE EXPERIMENT
which is much larger than the ranges of other two parameters, Instead of testing only single suspension point, half bogie is
the step size of for tuning kp is the largest among three tested (suspension point 1 and suspension point 2). With a
parameters. As ki ∈ [0.0001, 0.5], the step size of the gradient decentralized PID controller is implemented with θ 0 obtained
should be the smallest. from the experiments for single point, it is observed from
Thus in our experiments γ1 = 2, a1 = 5 (kp ) is selected. experiments that severe vibrations appear as shown in Fig. 9.
We also choose γ2 = 0.0001, a2 = 0.0001 (ki ) and In this experiments, a special tuning procedure is intro-
γ3 = 0.01, a3 = 0.02 (kd ). The parameters for low pass filters duced to reduce the possibility that the vibration could hap-
and high pass filters are set as H1 = 0.9245, L1 = 0.1404, pen. It is noted that the focus of this work is to optimize the
H2 = 0.9615, L2 = 0.3747, H3 = 0.949 and L3 = 0.2701. steady-state behavior, thus the transient response is ignored
Other parameters have been tested in the experiments with in this procedure. Firstly levitate suspension point 1 (I ).
slightly different performances. After suspension point 1 is stably levitated, suspension point
In order to compare the performance of decentralized PID 2 begins to levitate (II ). When suspension point 2 reaches its
controller, the first experiment focused on levitating suspen- steady-state, vibration happens and causes suspension point 1
sion point 2 only. The decentralized PID controller with the vibration. Then ES is introduced to tune PID parameters on-
ES is used to levitate suspension point 2 to r = 4mm, line to ensure the stability of the overall system (III ) with an
which had a lot of vibrations when used the PID param- optimal steady-state behaviour. The tuning of ES parameters
eters from the tuning of suspension point 1, as shown is similar to what discussed above. It is noticed that the PID
in Fig. 6b. Experiment result for suspension point 2 is shown parameters of suspension point 1 and suspension point 2 are
in Fig. 8. different after ES tuning. When the set-point are r = 4mm
It can be seen that when ES is used to auto-tune PID param- for suspension point 1 and suspension point 2, as shown
eters, the cost function decreases along iterations. Compared in Fig. 9, the PID parameters are kp = 1317, ki = 0.0964,
with Fig. 6b, a good steady-state performance is achieved kd = 12.44 for suspension point 1 and kp = 1370,
with vibrations greatly reduced. ki = 0.0958, kd = 12.73 for suspension point 2.

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FIGURE 9. Experiment results of half bogie: setting the expectation gap
to 4mm and 4mm.
It is observed that the performance of the proposed algo-
rithm is effective as it can greatly reduce the vibrations and
achieve better steady-sate response.
V. CONCLUSION
In the SSMLP, the decentralized PID control structure is
used to levitate the gap to the desired set-point. Due to the
existence of mechanic couplings among suspension points,
tuning PID parameters becomes very challenging. The trial-
and-error method cannot always work. This paper uses ES
algorithm to find optimal PID parameters on-line to achieve
good steady-state performance and avoid the vibrations. The
ES is implemented in a decentralized way and the initial
value of PID parameters come from trial-and-error methods.
Experimental results validate the effectiveness of the pro-
posed method.
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QIANG CHEN received the B.S. and M.S.
degrees in automation from the National Uni-
versity of Defense Technology, Changsha, China,
in 2012 and 2014, respectively, where he is cur-
rently working toward the Ph.D. degree at the
Maglev Engineering Center.
His research interests include magnetic levi-
tation control technologies and linear propulsion
technologies.
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Q. Chen et al.: Decentralized PID Control Design for Maglev Systems

YING TAN received the Ph.D. degree in electri-
cal engineering from the National University of
Singapore in 2002.
In 2002, she joined the Department of
Chemical Engineering, McMaster University, as a
Postdoctoral Fellow. Since 2004, she has been
with the Department of Electrical and Elec-
tronic Engineering, The University of Melbourne,
where she is currently an Associate Professor
and Reader. Her current research interests are
iterative learning control, extremum seeking control, nonlinear systems
and applications in rehabilitation robotic systems, and engine operation
optimizations.
IVEN MAREELS received the M.S. degree in
electromechanical engineering from Ghent Uni-
versity, Belgium, in 1982 and the Ph.D. degree in
systems engineering from The Australian National
University, Canberra, Australia, in 1987.
Since 1996, he has been a Professor of Electrical
and Electronic Engineering at the Department of
Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The Univer-
sity of Melbourne. His current research interests
are control and instrumentation for irrigation net-
works, control theory and automation, mathematical modelling of engineer-
ing systems, signal processing and data modelling, and systems engineering.

JIE LI received the Ph.D. degree in automation

from the National University of Defense Technol-
ogy, Changsha, China, in 1999.
He held a post-doctoral position with The
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology,
Hong Kong. He is currently a Professor with
the Maglev Engineering Center, National Univer-
sity of Defense Technology. His research interests
include the magnetic levitation technologies and
robotics.

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