Active magnetic bearing (AMB) actuators support rotors without frictio
n but require feedback control for stabilization and performance. Auto
balancing compensation causes AMBs to spin a rotor about its inertial
axis to eliminate synchronous force transmission from mass Imbalance.
Because mass unbalance constitutes a sinusoidal sensor disturbance wit
hin the bandwidth, conventional methods can either cause instability o
r fail to preserve desired bandwidth. We introduce a new method called
adaptive forced balancing (AFB) which overcomes these problems. We co
nsider AFB with a frequency cracking capability for SISO systems (i.e.
, single-end AMB suspensions) and show how to extend it for the MIMO c
ase as applied to a double-end AMB suspension.