In this paper, a levitation controller for a magnetic levitation(MagLev) system is designed and implemented. The target to be controlled is PEM(permanent and electromagnet) type with 4-corners levitation which is open-loop unstable, highly non-linear and time-varying system. The digital control system consists of a VME-based CPU board, AD board, PU board, 4-Quadrant chopper, and gap sensor, accelerometer as feedback sensors. In order to estimate the velocity of the magnet, we used 2nd-order state observer with acceleration and gap signal as input and output, respectively. Using the estimated states, a state feedback control law for the plant is designed and the feedback gains are selected by using the pole-placement method. The designed controller is experimentally validated by step-type gap reference change and force disturbance test.
