Complex active control systems are not necessary for stable levitation.

Radial Halbach magnetic bearings have been investigated as part of an effort to develop increasingly reliable non-contact bearings for future high-speed rotary machines that may be used in such applications as aircraft, industrial, and land-vehicle power systems and in some medical and scientific instrumentation systems. Radial Halbach magnetic bearings are based on the same principle as that of axial Halbach magnetic bearings, differing in geometry as the names of these two types of bearings suggest. Both radial and axial Halbach magnetic bearings are passive in the sense that unlike most other magnetic bearings that have been developed in recent years, they effect stable magnetic levitation without need for complex active control.

Figure 1. A Basic Halbach Array consists of permanent magnets oriented in a sequence of quarter turns chosen to concentrate the magnetic field on one side. The motion of the array along a wire coil gives rise to an electromagnetic repulsion that can be exploited for levitation.
Axial Halbach magnetic bearings were described in “Axial Halbach Magnetic Bearings” (LEW-18066-1), NASA Tech Briefs, Vol. 32, No. 7 (July 2008), page 85. In the remainder of this article, the description of the principle of operation from the cited prior article is recapitulated and updated to incorporate the present radial geometry.

Figure 2. The Rotor in a Radial Halbach Magnetic Bearing has an outer layer consisting of a cylindrical version of the Halbach array of Figure 1. The bearing also includes multiple coils in a stator (omitted from this view) surrounding the rotor.
In simplest terms, the basic principle of levitation in an axial or radial Halbach magnetic bearing is that of the repulsive electromagnetic force between (1) a moving permanent magnet and (2) an electric current induced in a stationary electrical conductor by the motion of the magnetic field. An axial or radial Halbach bearing includes multiple permanent magnets arranged in a Halbach array (“Halbach array” is defined below) in a rotor and multiple conductors in the form of wire coils in a stator, all arranged so the rotary motion produces an axial or radial repulsion that is sufficient to levitate the rotor.

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