A low cost single microcontroller hybrid stepper motor controller and drive with adaptive ripple reduction using current feedback

Abstract

In this paper a low cost implementation of hybrid stepper motor controller and driver is presented. The controller incorporates an inexpensive microcontroller to perform chopper control, current feedback, adaptive ripple torque reduction based on the presented algorithm. The design uses current feedback to compensate torque ripples resulting from both motor structure and pulse commands issued from the higher level system, furthermore no position measurement is needed in the controller design thus position sensors are not required. The controller needs no information on the load torque and motor parameters and is automatically adjusted to position the motor to the desired location with minimum torque ripple. The microcontroller's algorithm abilities and performance is shown using computer simulations on a hybrid stepper motor model with different parameters, speeds and under different load torques. An implementation of the system and practical test results are also presented.