EE3033 – Electrical Machines and Drives III

ASSIGNMENT 1
Electrical Machines and Drives III

Name:- N.K.Samarasinghe
Department:- Electrical Engineering
Sub.date:- 2019/08/16
A stepper motor, also known as step motor or stepping motor, is a brushless DC electric motor that
divides a full rotation into a number of equal steps. It converts digital pulses into mechanical shaft
rotation. Its normal shaft motion consists of discrete angular movements of essentially uniform
magnitude when driven from sequentially switched DC power supply. The motor's position can then be
commanded to move and hold at one of these steps without any position sensor for feedback (an open-
loop controller), as long as the motor is carefully sized to the application in respect to torque and speed.

Some industrial and scientific applications of stepper motors include robotics, machine tools, pick and
place machines, automated wire cutting and wire bonding machines, and even precise fluid control
devices.

How does a stepper motor work?

Brushed DC motors rotate continuously when DC voltage is applied to their terminals. The stepper motor
is known by its property of converting a train of input pulses (typically square wave pulses) into a
precisely defined increment in the shaft position. Each pulse moves the shaft through a fixed angle.

Stepper motors effectively have multiple "toothed" electromagnets arranged around a central gear-
shaped piece of iron-rotor. The electromagnets in stator are energized by an external driver circuit or a
micro controller to produces a vector magnetic field. To make the motor shaft turn, first, one
electromagnet is given power, which magnetically attracts the gear's teeth. When the gear's teeth are
aligned to the first electromagnet, they are slightly offset from the next electromagnet. This means that
when the next electromagnet is turned on and the first is turned off, the gear rotates slightly to align with
the next one. From there the process is repeated. Each of those rotations is called a "step", with an integer
number of steps making a full rotation. In that way, the motor can be turned by a precise angle.

The circular arrangement of electromagnets is divided into groups, each group called a phase, and there
is an equal number of electromagnets per group. The number of groups is chosen by the designer of the
stepper motor. The electromagnets of each group are interleaved with the electromagnets of other groups
to form a uniform pattern of arrangement. For example, if the stepper motor has two groups identified
as A or B, and ten electromagnets in total, then the grouping pattern would be ABABABABAB.

Electromagnets within the same group are all energized together. Because of this, stepper motors with
more phases typically have more wires (or leads) to control the motor.

Types of Stepper Motors

There are three basic categories of stepper motors, namely

• Permanent Magnet Stepper Motor

• Variable Reluctance Stepper Motor
• Hybrid Stepper Motor

The latter two types have a permanent magnet in the rotor assembly.

In all these motors excitation windings are employed in stator where the number of windings refer to
the number of phases.

A DC voltage is applied as an excitation to the coils of windings and each winding terminal is
connected to the source through a solid-state switch. Depends on the type of stepper motor, its rotor
design is constructed such as soft steel rotor with salient poles, cylindrical permanent magnet rotor and
permanent magnet with soft steel teeth.

Variable Reluctance Stepper Motor

It is the basic type of stepper motor. As the name suggests, operate based on the principle that minimum
reluctance occurs with minimum gap, hence the rotor points are attracted toward the stator magnet
poles.
Construction of Variable Reluctance Stepper Motor

It consists of a wound stator and a soft iron multi-tooth rotor. The stator has a stack of silicon steel
laminations on which stator windings are wound. Usually, it is wound for three phases which are
distributed between the pole pairs.

The number of poles on stator thus formed is equal to an even multiple of the number of phases for
which windings are wounded on stator. The rotor carries no windings and is of salient pole type made
entirely of slotted steel laminations. The rotor pole’s projected teeth have the same width as that of stator
teeth. The number of poles on stator differs to that of rotor poles, which provides the ability to self start
and bidirectional rotation of the motor.

The relation of rotor poles in terms of stator poles for a three phase stepper motor is given as, Nr = Ns ±
(Ns / q).

Working Principle of Variable Reluctance Stepper Motor

The stepper motor works on the principle that the rotor aligns in a particular position with the teeth of
the excitation pole in a magnetic circuit wherein minimum reluctance path exist. Whenever power is
applied to the motor and by exciting a particular winding, it produces its magnetic field and develops its
own magnetic poles.

Due to the residual magnetism in the rotor magnet poles, it will cause the rotor to move in such a position
so as to achieve minimum reluctance position and hence one set of poles of rotor aligns with the
energized set of poles of the stator. At this position, the axis of the stator magnetic field matches with
the axis passing through any two magnetic poles of the rotor.

When the rotor aligns with stator poles, it has enough magnetic force to hold the shaft from moving to
the next position, either in clockwise or anti-clockwise direction.

The below pictures describe the operation of the motor.

The step angle can be further reduced by increasing the number of poles on the stator and rotor, in such
case motors are often wound with additional phase windings. This can also be achieved by adopting a
different construction of stepper motors such as multi-stack arrangement and reduction gear mechanism.

The variable reluctance stepper motor has following advantages.

1. High torque to inertia ratio
2. High rates of acceleration
3. Fast dynamic response
4. Simple and low-cost machine
5. Efficient cooling arrangement as all the windings are on stator and there is no winding on rotor

The variable reluctance stepper motor is used in the applications where above advantages play a major
role. Ex : Analog electric meters, some washing machine designs, control rod drive mechanisms of
nuclear reactors and hard disk drive motor.

Permanent Magnet Stepper Motor

The permanent magnet design motor is perhaps the most common types of stepper motors. As the name
implies, it adds permanent magnets to the motor construction. Here the rotor is permanently magnetized.
Hence, the movement of the motor is due to the attraction and repulsion between the stator and rotor
magnetic poles.

In this motor, the direction of the motor is directly dependent on the direction of the current flow in the
windings as the magnetic poles are reversed my changing the direction of the current flowing through
the rotor.

This type of stepper motors is also referred as can-stack motor or tin-can motor. The main advantage of
this motor is its low manufacturing cost.
Construction Permanent Magnet Stepper Motor

In this motor, the stator is of multipolar and its construction is similar to that of variable reluctance
stepper motor as discussed above. It consists of slotted periphery on which stator coils are wound. It has
projected poles on the slotted structure where the wound windings can be two or three or four-phase.

The end terminals of all these windings are bought out and connected to the dc excitation via solid state
switches in the drive circuit.

The rotor is made up of a permanent magnet material like a ferrite that can be in the shape of either
cylindrical or salient pole, but usually it is of smooth cylindrical type. The rotor designed to have an
even number of permanent magnetic poles with alternate North and South polarities.

Working of Permanent Magnet Stepper Motor

The operation of this motor works on the principle on attraction and repulsion between the stator and
rotor magnetic poles.. When the stator windings are excited with a dc supply, it produces magnetic
flux and establishes the North and South poles. Due to the force of attraction and repulsion between
permanent magnet rotor poles and stator poles, the rotor starts moving up to the position for which pulses
are given to the stator.

The below diagrams show the working principle.

Hybrid Stepper Motor
It is the most popular type of stepper motor as it provides better performance than permanent magnet
rotor in terms of step resolution, holding torque and speed. However, these motors are more expensive
than PM stepper motors. It combines the best features of both variable reluctance and permanent magnet
stepper motors. These motors are used in applications that require very small stepping angle such as 1.5,
1.8 and 2.5 degrees.
The number of full steps per revolution may be determined from the following formula:
SPR = NR x Ø
Where: SPR = number of steps per revolution
NR = total number of rotor teeth (total for both yokes)
Ø = number of motor phases
or: NR = SPR/Ø

Construction of Hybrid Stepper Motor

The stator of this motor is same as its permanent magnet or reluctance type counterpart. The stator coils
are wound on alternate poles. In this, the coils of different phases are wound on each pole, usually two
coils at a pole which is referred as a bifilar connection.

The rotor consists of a permanent magnet which is magnetized in axial direction to create a pair of
magnetic poles (N and S poles). Each pole is covered with uniformly spaced teeth. The teeth are made
up of soft steel and two sections, of which on each pole is misaligned each other by a half-tooth pitch.
Working Principal of Hybrid Stepper Motor

This motor works similar to the permanent magnet stepper motor. The above picture shows 2-phase, 4-
pole, 6-tooth rotor hybrid stepper motor. When the phase A-A’ is excited with a dc supply, keeping B-
B’ unexcited, the rotor aligns such that the south pole of the rotor faces north pole of the stator while
north pole of rotor faces south pole of the stator.

Now, if the phase B-B’ is excited, keeping A-A’ switched off in such a way that upper pole becomes
north and lower becomes south, then the rotor will align to a new position by moving through
counterclockwise direction. If the phase B-B’ is oppositely excited such that the upper pole becomes
south and lower becomes north, then the rotor will turn clockwise direction

Step angle, resolution, stepping frequency

Step angle is defined as the angle which the rotor of a stepper motor moves when one pulse is applied
to the input of the stator. The positioning of a motor is decided by the step angle and is expressed in
degrees.

The resolution or the step number of a motor is the number of steps it makes in one revolution of the
rotor. Smaller the step angle higher the resolution of the positioning of the stepper motor.

The accuracy of positioning of the objects by the motor depends on the resolution. Higher the resolution
greater will be the accuracy. Some precision motors can make 1000 steps in one revolution with a step
angle of 0.36 degrees. A standard motor will have a step angle of 1.8 degrees with 200 steps per
revolution. The various step angles like 90, 45 and 15 degrees are common in simple motors.

The number of phases can vary from two to six. Small steps angle can be obtained by using slotted pole
pieces.

Every revolution of the stepper motor is divided into a discrete number of steps, and the motor must be
sent a separate pulse for each step. The stepper motor can only take one step at a time and each step is
the same size. Since each pulse causes the motor to rotate a precise angle, the motor's position can be
controlled without any feedback mechanism. As the digital pulses increase in frequency, the step
movement changes into continuous rotation, with the speed of rotation directly proportional to the
frequency of the pulses.
Stepper drive techniques including switching sequences

Motor driver

Stepper motor performance is strongly dependent on the driver circuit. Torque curves may be extended
to greater speeds if the stator poles can be reversed more quickly, the limiting factor being a combination
of the winding inductance. To overcome the inductance and switch the windings quickly, one must
increase the drive voltage. This leads further to the necessity of limiting the current that these high
voltages may otherwise induce.

L/R driver circuits

L/R driver circuits are also referred to as constant voltage drives because a constant positive or negative
voltage is applied to each winding to set the step positions. However, it is winding current, not voltage
that applies torque to the stepper motor shaft. The current I in each winding is related to the applied
voltage V by the winding inductance L and the winding resistance R. The resistance R determines the
maximum current according to Ohm's law I=V/R. The inductance L determines the maximum rate of
change of the current in the winding according to the formula for an inductor dI/dt = V/L. Thus when
controlled by an L/R drive, the maximum speed of a stepper motor is limited by its inductance since at
some speed, the voltage U will be changing faster than the current I can keep up. In simple terms the
rate of change of current is L / R (e.g. a 10mH inductance with 2ohms resistance will take 5ms to reach
approximately 2/3 of maximum torque or around 24ms to reach 99% of max torque). To obtain high
torque at high speeds requires a large drive voltage with a low resistance and low inductance.

With an L/R drive it is possible to control a low voltage resistive motor with a higher voltage drive
simply by adding an external resistor in series with each winding. This will waste power in the resistors
and generate heat. It is therefore considered a low performing option, albeit simple and cheap.

Modern voltage-mode drivers overcome some of these limitations by approximating a sinusoidal voltage
waveform to the motor phases. The amplitude of the voltage waveform is set up to increase with step
rate. If properly tuned, this compensates the effects of inductance and back-EMF, allowing decent
performance relative to current-mode drivers, but at the expense of design effort (tuning procedures)
that are simpler for current-mode drivers.

Chopper drive circuits

Chopper drive circuits are referred to as constant current drives because they generate a somewhat
constant current in each winding rather than applying a constant voltage. On each new step, a very high
voltage is applied to the winding initially. This causes the current in the winding to rise quickly since
dI/dt = V/L where V is very large. The current in each winding is monitored by the controller, usually
by measuring the voltage across a small sense resistor in series with each winding. When the current
exceeds a specified current limit, the voltage is turned off or "chopped", typically using power
transistors. When the winding current drops below the specified limit, the voltage is turned on again. In
this way, the current is held relatively constant for a particular step position. This requires additional
electronics to sense winding currents, and control the switching, but it allows stepper motors to be driven
with higher torque at higher speeds than L/R drives. Integrated electronics for this purpose are widely
available.

Switching sequences

Stepper drives control how a stepper motor operates, there are three commonly used excitation modes
for stepper motors, full step, half step and micro-stepping. These excitation modes have an effect on
both the running properties and torque the motor delivers.

A stepper motor converts electronic signals into mechanical movement each time an incoming pulse is
applied to the motor. Each pulse moves the shaft in fixed increments. If the stepper motor has a 1.8° step
resolution, then in order for shaft to rotate one complete revolution, in full step operation, the stepper
motor would need to receive 200 pulses, 360° ÷ 1.8 = 200.

Let’s take a motor with one pole pair on the rotor, this corresponds to 4 steps per electrical cycle as an
example.

Full step

There are two types of full step excitation modes.

In one-phase on - full step, Fig1, the motor is operated with only one phase energized at a time. This
mode requires the least amount of power from the driver of any of the excitation modes. Also known as
wave step.
In two-phase on - full step, Fig2, the motor is operated with both phases energized at the same time. This
mode provides improved torque and speed performance. Two-phase on provides about 30% to 40%
more torque than one phase on, however it requires twice as much power from the driver

Half step

Half step excitation mode is a combination of one phase on and two phase on full step modes. This
results in half the basic step angle. This smaller step angle provides smoother operation due the increased
resolution of the angle.

Half step produces about 15% less torque than two phase on - full step, however modified half stepping
eliminates the torque decrease by increasing the current applied to the motor when a single phase is
energized. See Fig3
Micro step

Micro-stepping can divide a motor’s basic step by up to 256 times, making small steps smaller. A Micro
drive uses two current sinewaves 90° apart, this is perfect for enabling smooth running of the motor.
You will notice that the motor runs is quietly and with no real detectable stepping action.

By controlling direction and amplitude of the current flow in each winding, the resolution increases and
the characteristics of the motor improve, giving less vibration and smoother operation. Because the
sinewaves work together there is a smooth transition from one winding to the other. When current
increases in one it decreases in the other resulting in a smooth step progression and maintained torque
output. See Fig4
Unipolar drive / Bipolar drive stepper motors

These stepper motors can be unipolar or bipolar based on the coil winding arrangements. A unipolar
motor is employed with two windings per phase and hence the direction of current flow through these
windings changes the rotation of the motor. In this configuration, the current flow is through one
direction in one coil and opposite direction in another coil.
The figure below shows 2-phase unipolar stepper motor wherein A and C coils are for one phase and B
and D are for other phase. In each phase each coil carries current in opposite direction to that of other
coil. Only one coil will be carrying current at a time in each phase for achieving particular direction of
rotation. So just by switching the terminals to each coil, the direction of rotation is controlled.

In case of a bipolar stepper motor, each phase consists of a single winding rather than two in case of
unipolar one. In this, the direction of rotation is controlled by reversing the current through the windings.
Hence, it requires a complex drive circuit for current reversal.
2-Phase Bipolar Stepper Motor

Snubbing for stepper motors

Due to overheating, over voltage, over current or excessive change in voltage or current switching,
devices and circuit components may fail. From over current they can be protected by placing fuses at
suitable locations. Heat sinks and fans can be used to take the excess heat away from switching devices
and other components. Snubber circuits are needed to limit the rate of change in voltage or current (di/dt
or dv/dt) and over voltage during turn-on and turn-off.

Snubbers are energy-absorbing circuits used to suppress the voltage spikes caused by the circuit's
inductance when a switch, electrical or mechanical, opens. The most common snubber circuit is a
capacitor and resistor connected in series across the switch (transistor). This is called RC snubber. We
can use a RC snubber circuit to suppress voltage transient spikes in stepper motor winding. It gives
increased efficiency.

This circuit is a capacitor and series resistor connected across a switch. For designing the Snubber
circuits, the amount of energy is to dissipate in the snubber resistance is equal to the amount of energy
is stored in the capacitors. An RC Snubber placed across the switch can be used to reduce the peak
voltage at turn-off and to lamp the ring. An RC snubber circuit can be polarized or non-polarized. If you
assume the source has negligible impedance, the worst-case peak current in the snubber circuit is

I = Vo/Rs and I = C.dv/dt

Choose a resistor that’s noninductive. A good choice is a carbon composition resistor. Avoid wire wound
because it is inductive. Choose a capacitor to withstand the stratospherically high peak currents in
snubbers.
References

1. https://www.electricaltechnology.org/2016/12/stepper-motor-construction-types-and-modes-of-
operation.html#variable-reluctance-stepper-motor
2. https://www.omega.co.uk/prodinfo/stepper_motors.html
3. https://www.elprocus.com/rc-snubber-circuits/