Electrical discharge machining has the capability of machining all conductive materials regardless of hardness, and has the ability to deal with complex shapes. However, the speed and accuracy of conventional EDM are limited by probability and efficiency of the electrical discharges. This paper describes a three degrees of freedom (3-DOF) controlled, wide-bandwidth, high-precision, long-stroke magnetic drive actuator. The actuator can be attached to conventional electrical discharge machines to realize a high-speed and high-accuracy EDM. The actuator primarily consists of thrust and radial magnetic bearings, thrust and radial air bearings and a magnetic coupling mechanism. By using the thrust and radial magnetic bearings, the translational motions of the spindle can be controlled. The magnetic drive actuator possesses a positioning resolution of the order of micrometer, a bandwidth greater than 100Hz and a positioning stroke of 2mm.
