This paper focuses on the analysis and compensation of thrust ripples in permanent magnet linear synchronous motors (PMLSM). The main drawback in PMLSMs is the presence of thrust ripples, which are mainly due to the interaction between the permanent magnets and armature slotted core. These thrust ripples reduce the performance of the drive system in high precision applications especially at low speeds. This paper analyzes thrust ripples using the discrete wavelet transform. These undesired thrust ripples are compensated by using an adaptive feed forward controller. It is observed that this novel controller reduces about 65 percent of the thrust ripples. An extensive simulation is performed through MATLAB and it is validated through experimental results using a d-SPACE system with a DS1104 control board.