A novel method transferring the copper rod without contact by axial magnet wheels

Abstract

An axial magnet wheel, in which permanent magnets are arranged circumferentially and polarized periodically, is proposed as a driving method to transfer a conductive rod without mechanical contact in space. The magnet wheel, whose axial plane is laid parallel to the rod, is rotated to generate three axial magnetic forces on the rod. But, the all forces are strongly coupled to each other through the rotational speed of the wheel. Furthermore, the number of degrees of freedom to be controlled in the transfer system, in which the rod is supported by two pairs of magnet wheels actuated by two wheel motors, is more than the number of input variables. To solve the above problem, a novel method in which the transfer control of the rod is converted to a tilt control of the rod is proposed and verified experimentally. And, the force characteristic of the magnet wheel is analyzed for variations of the main geometric parameters to obtain the desired design specifications.