A design and control of electrostatic suspension system for flexible objects is presented. A number of electrode pairs of which the number depends on the object flexibility are positioned above the object and the voltages applied to each electrode pair are controlled, independently on the others, on the basis of the gap length. To implement the system with low cost and compactness, switched-voltage control scheme that is based on the relay feedback control is utilized. Relay feedback control method deploys only a single high-voltage power supply that can deliver a DC voltage of positive and/or negative polarity and thus high voltage amplifiers that are costly and bulky are not needed any more. It is shown that despite the inherent limit cycle property of the relay feedback based control, an excellent performance in vibration suppression is attained due to the presence of a relatively large squeeze film damping originating from the electrodes and levitated object. Employing fourteen electrode pairs, a thin aluminum plate with a thickness of 0.1 ㎜ has been suspended at a gap length of 0.75㎜.
