Electromagnetic devices in industrial systems are utilised for problems of positioning and tracking control. A direct adaptive non-linear control framework for a non-linear electromagnetic actuator is presented in this paper. Starting from a Lyapunov approach a continuous control law is calculated for the actuator. After that, an approximated sampled final control law is proposed. The resulting control strategy is an adaptive one in which the main parameter depends on the variable inductance of the actuator itself. This aspect seems to be important to prevent saturation during the control phase.