As transportation becomes increasingly electrified and efforts intensify to cut greenhouse gas emissions, high-speed rail has emerged as a viable alternative to short-haul air travel. A further advancement of this concept is the magnetic levitation (maglev) train, which uses linear electric motors (LEMs) for propulsion and enables very high operating speeds. Unlike traditional rail systems, maglev trains do not physically contact the track or guideway. This gap can be produced either directly by the LEM or through an auxiliary levitation mechanism.
Maglev technologies can be categorised into two main types based on the guideway design:

• An active guideway refers to the presence of an excitation or moving field on the track.
• A passive guideway is composed exclusively of conductive or ferromagnetic material, often referred to simply as the rail, offering the potential for lower infrastructure costs—typically the dominant expense in maglev deployment.

For passive guideway maglevs, the linear induction motor (LIM) has long been considered suitable for both propulsion and levitation. However, its declining performance at high speeds, coupled with a low efficiency–power factor product and modest force-to-weight ratios, has confined its use mainly to low-speed operations. These drawbacks have pushed investigations of alternative technologies. One such alternative, the homopolar linear synchronous motor (H-LSM), though requiring a more complex rail design, offers superior efficiency–power factor characteristics and significantly higher force-to-weight ratios, making it a promising candidate for high-speed maglev applications.