Backstepping cooperative control study of a 5-DOF magnetic levitation actuator for laser cutting lens control

During laser processing, optimizing the cutting effect by adjusting the angle or the off-axis displacement between the auxiliary gas and the laser beam has become an important approach to improving processing quality and efficiency. However, traditional electromechanical actuators have notable limitations in terms of compactness and multi-degree-of-freedom cooperative control, making them inadequate for the demands of high-speed and high-precision laser cutting. To address this issue, this paper designs a five-degree-of-freedom magnetic levitation actuator for controlling the laser cutting lens, and proposes a multi-degree-of-freedom cooperative control strategy based on backstepping control to handle the system's strong coupling, nonlinearity, and model uncertainty. First, a dynamic model of the drive system is established, and a backstepping controller is developed accordingly. Then, a centralized control strategy is formulated, and simulation and experimental comparisons are conducted between PID and backstepping control. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed backstepping controller outperforms the traditional PID controller in terms of multi-degree-of-freedom cooperative control and dynamic response, effectively enhancing the system's multi-degree-of-freedom control performance. This study provides theoretical support and engineering guidance for designing control strategies in high-performance magnetic levitation drive systems.