This book explores the direct thrust force control (DTFC) of tubular surface-mount linear permanent magnet synchronous motors (linear PMSMs). It presents a detailed account and analysis of several advanced nonlinear control schemes, based on the direct thrust control principle, to achieve a reduction in steady-state ripple in thrust force with faster transient response, and describes their experimental validation. It also provides rigorous details of the dynamic modelling of linear PMSMs from a control system perspective, and demonstrates the superior control performance of the proposed techniques compared to the current state-of-the-art techniques. Lastly, the book proposes and validates a stator flux observer for sensorless speed estimation comprising a linear state observer and an improved sliding mode component.