Levitation Control of AEROTRAIN: Development of Experimental Wing-in-Ground Effect Vehicle and Stabilization AlongZAxis and About Roll and Pitch Axes

The goal of this study is to develop levitation stabilization control for an aerodynamically levitated highspeed, high-efficiency train, “Aero-Train.” Levitation occurs due to the wing-in-ground effect acting on a U-shaped guideway. To achieve our goal, we developed a small experimental prototype of the wing-in-ground vehicle, its dynamic model and control for stabilization along the Z axis and about the roll and pitch axes using a linear quadratic regulator, as described in this paper. Control effectiveness is confirmed by experimental results.