Five-degree-of-freedom active magnetic bearing with homopolar magnetic fields

This paper introduces a novel five-degree-of-freedom actively controlled magnetic bearing that combines an axial active magnetic bearing with radial force and tilting torque control functions. Attaching bias permanent magnets to the rotor and generating both homopolar and bipolar magnetic fields in the stator enables active control of the axial and radial forces and tilting torque with low power consumption and minimal rotating loss. The results of levitation tests shows that the proposed bearing is capable of five-axis active control.