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Active real-time tension control for coil winding machine of BLDC motors

Conference Paper · January 2014

DOI: 10.1109/ICACCI.2014.6968514

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 Active Real-time Tension Control for
Coil Winding Machine of BLDC Motors
Van Tu Duong, Phuc Thinh Doan,
Jung Hu Min, Hak Kyeong Kim, Sang Bong Kim*
Department of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering,
Pukyong National University,
Busan, South Korea
* Division of Mechatronics Engineering,
Corresponding author. E-mail: kimsb@pknu.ac.kr;
Tel.: +82-051-629-6158
Abstract—This paper proposes a new active tension system
which is used in coil winding machine for BLDC motor
manufacturing. A comparison of winding condition between
normal coil such as round shape coil, rectangle shape coil and
BLDC coil is presented. To overcome the harsh winding
condition of BLDC coil winding, a new wire accumulator is
proposed to store or release a wire when the wire is stretched
or sagging. Wire accumulator consists of a pneumatic cylinder
which is driven by a servo valve and a spring. The system
modeling result shows that this tension system is a MISO
system. The traditional PID controller is adopted and drives
the real tension according to the given reference tension. In
order to evaluate the effectiveness of wire accumulator and the
performance of the proposed controller, some simulation
results are carried out.
Keywords—tension control; winding machine; pneumatic
cylinder; MISO; BLDC motor.
I. INTRODUCTION
DC (Direct Current) motor is an apparatus which has
been widely used in industry. There are many kinds of DC
motor such as: stepper motor, servo motor, BLDC
(Brushless Direct Current) motor, ect. However, BLDC
motor has low cost, high speed and long life because the
motor do not use any brushes and commutator. The
manufacture of BLDC motor involves coil winding. The
coils are made up of the number of turns of
copper/aluminum wire which are wound around a rectangle
shape coil. In winding process, wire turns should be wound
closely together without overlapping. This depends strongly
on wire tension during coil winding. Wire tension must be
kept at constant level to ensure high quality of coil and
avoid broken wire. The vibration of wire tension is caused
by the change in wire blending speed.
Conventionally, passive tensioners are adopted to control
wire tension in wire winding process for round shape coil
such as: voice coil, speaker coil, ect. These devices are
purely mechanical including: felt pad, spring and ball screw
with knot at top. In order to adjust the tension force, the
length of spring is changed by rotating the knot to
increase/decrease the pushing force of spring to felt pad.
The friction force caused by felt pad acts on wire to generate
978-1-4799-3080-7/14/$31.00 2014
c IEEE
Jae Hoon Jeong
YAHOTEC CO., LTD
Gimhae-si, Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea
Sea June Oh
Korea Maritime University
Busan, South Korea
the wire tension. In the case of rectangle shape coil winding,
wire tension can be obtained by using commercial tension
device. These devices use a brake pulley which is wrapped
roll by wire. The speed of brake pulley is controlled by a
mechanical structure or an amplified signal which have been
achieved from the measured angle of a dancer arm.
There were some researches at predetermined level in
wire tension control [1–3]. But these researches did not
show the effectiveness as well as the approaching of tension
control system. In [4], a tension device for coil winding
without specifying a coil shape was proposed. In order to
keep wire tension at constant value, a PID algorithm was
employed to control DC motor speed, and drive a dancer
arm at desired rotation angle. In the same mechanical
principle, a tension device for transformer manufacturing
was developed [5]. However, these papers did not show the
system modeling as well as the controller design to ensure
stability of the system. They only focused on the process of
handling PID algorithm in PIC microcontroller. In [6], a
filament winding tension control based on PLC was derived.
AC servo motors were adopted to drive unwinder and
winder to wind a wire coil. A simplified modeling equation
was shown to describe the effect of resistant moment of AC
servo motor to winding radius and winding speed. A
compensation of winding radius was also achieved.
However, this paper did not present a controller based on
system modeling equation. In [7], a study on tension control
system with a magnetic particle clutch was proposed for
filament winding system. A motor rotating at constant speed
was used to drive winder while a magnetic particle clutch
was attached to unwinder. In order to manipulate the yarn
tension, three compensation techniques for scroll radius,
scroll velocity and lag in magnetic particle clutch as well as
transfer function of magnetic particle clutch were provided.
Since the purpose of this study only focused research level,
controller design and simulation results were not shown.
This paper presents an active wire tension control used
in BLDC coil winding machine. The modeling result of the
winding machine is proposed and used to apply a traditional
PID control. A mechanism using a pneumatic cylinder and a
spring known as wire accumulator is adopted. To validate
765
the performance of system, some simulation results based
on PID controller are carried out.
II. SYSTEM DESCRIBTION AND MODELING
Fig. 1 shows BLDC coil winding machine. The real
machine is shown in Fig. 1a, and Fig. 1b shows the sketch
of the BLDC coil winding machine. In coil winding
machine for BLDC motor manufacturing (BLDC winding
machine), there are three parts such as: wire storage, pre-
processor, and winding devices. Wire storage is usually a
wire spool. Pre-processor includes a roll to roll system for
transporting a wire from wire spool to a tension device
through a wire cleaning part. For wire winding process,
tension device is an important part. By this apparatus, wire
tension is kept at constant value to ensure the quality of coil
as well as the machine can operate at high speed winding
without wire broken. After controlling tension, the wire in
desired tension force is fed to a winding pin attached on a
winding shaft. Due to vertical sliding and shaking motion of
the winding shaft, the winding pin rolls the wire around the
coil tooth producing a wire coil.
a. The real machine
b The sketch of machine
Fig. 1 BLDC coil winding machine
The key difference between BLDC winding machine and
other machines for coil winding is the wire winding
procedure. Conventionally, a winding machine for sound
coil/transformer coil uses an actuator to drive a coil in rotary
for wire winding. However, the coil is clamped in static
while the wire is wound by the winding pin used as an
actuator in BLDC winding machine. This means that wire
tension in wire winding process of BLDC winding machine
is more fluctuation. Therefore, it is difficult for controlling
the wire tension compared to other winding machines.
766 2014 International Conference on Advances in Computing,Communications and Informatics (ICACCI)
A. Winding radius
In order to compare the fluctuation of wire tension
between the case of normal coil (sound coil/transformer
coil) winding and the case of BLDC coil winding, a factor
called a winding radius should be considered. The winding
radius is a wire length stretched sufficiently without sagging.
The wire length is defined as length from wire blending
fixed point to the contact point between wound wire and coil.
For a round shape coil as Fig. 2a, the winding radius has no
change in one turn of winding. In this case, the vibration of
tension depends on the rotation speed of round coil and the
sliding movement speed of wire blending pin along to round
coil length. On the contrast, for a rectangle shape coil, the
contact point between wound wire and rectangle shape coil
as Fig. 2b moves along to arc contour. It means that the
winding radius‫ٻ‬changes sinusoidally. ‫ٻ‬
For BLDC coil, in order to wind wire around on coil
tooth, the winding pin carries a wire and moves along to
fixed rectangle contour being proportional to the dimension
of coil tooth for delivering wire to coil tooth. After winding
one wire turn, the winding pin indents a step equal to wire
diameter for winding next wire turn. The procedure is
repeated until winding one wire layer is finished.
In BLDC coil structure, since the number of coil teeth is
a multiple of 3, three coil teeth should be wound at the same
time to increase productivity [8].
Accordingly, there are three winding pins used as the
actuators. Let consider the wire winding configuration for
one BLDC coil tooth as shown in Fig. 3a.
Fig. 2 The winding of normal coil.
α
rw1
rw2
Fig. 3 The coil winding configuration of BLDC coil tooth.
 To describe the winding radius easily in the winding l4 − l2 1
process, the real model (in Fig. 3a) is replaced by an rw5 (t ) =
2 cos α (t )
approximated model as shown in Fig. 3b. The length and
width of coil tooth are denoted by l1, l2, respectively, and l3, § l +l ·
0 ≤ α (t ) ≤ acrtan ¨ 3 1 ¸
l4 are vertical and horizontal lengths of winding pin contour, © l4 − l2 ¹
respectively. The angle α formed by an edge of coil tooth l3 + l1
(4)
1
and the direction of winding radius is time-variable. In one rw6 (t ) =
turn of coil winding, there are eight stages of winding radius 2 sin α (t )
fluctuation. § l +l · π
acrtan ¨ 3 1 ¸ ≤ α (t ) ≤
First, the winding pin starts at A point, then it moves to © l4 − l2 ¹ 2
B point while the contact point is generated at P1. The
winding radius for this stage is given by: In last two stages, the contact point is specified at P4 point.
The angle α is formed by the direction of winding radius
l4 − l2 1 and the edge (P3P4). The winding radii are given by:
rw1 (t ) =
2 cos α (t )
(1) l3 − l1 1
§ l +l · rw7 (t ) =
0 ≤ α (t ) ≤ acrtan ¨ 3 1 ¸ 2 cos α (t )
© l4 − l2 ¹
§l +l ·
0 ≤ α (t ) ≤ acrtan ¨ 4 2 ¸
In second stage, the winding pin moves from B point to C © l3 − l1 ¹
point, thereby, the winding radius is calculated by: (5)
l +l 1
rw8 (t ) = 4 2
2 sin α (t )
l3 + l1 1
rw 2 (t ) = §l +l · π
2 sin α (t ) acrtan ¨ 4 2 ¸ ≤ α (t ) ≤
(2) © l − l ¹ 2
§ l +l · π 3 1
acrtan ¨ 3 1 ¸ ≤ α (t ) ≤
© l4 − l2 ¹ 2
where rwi (t ) (i = 1 − 8) is the winding radius which is a
function of time, and subscript i stands for the order of stage.
For first and second stages, the angle α is formed by the
In one round of wire winding, the length and width of coil
edge (P4P1) and the direction of winding radius.
tooth are the constant value.
The winding pin moves from C point to D point in third
stage, then moves to E point in fourth stage. The contact
B. Description and modeling of the tension system
point is generated at P2 and the angle α is formed by the
edge (P1P2) and the direction of winding radius in both The objective of tension system is to control wire tension,
stages. The winding radii are given by the following delivery wire adapt to winding speed, and store/release the
equations, respectively: wire when the wire is sagged/stretched. Accordingly,
tension system is shown in Fig. 4.
l3 − l1 1
rw3 (t ) =
2 cos α (t )
§l +l ·
0 ≤ α (t ) ≤ acrtan ¨ 4 2 ¸
© l3 − l1 ¹
(3)
l +l 1 T T
rw 4 (t ) = 4 2 T
2 sin α (t )
§l +l · π rp
acrtan ¨ 4 2 ¸ ≤ α (t ) ≤ θp
l −
© 3 1¹l 2
Fig. 4 Tension system

The contact point moves to P3 for next stage. The angle α is
formed by the edge (P2P3) and the direction of winding
radius. The winding radii for fourth and fifth stage are given
by:
In Fig. 4, a DC torque motor is adopted to drive main pulley
for delivering the wire. Main pulley has the radius called
rp , and winds one turn of wire to ensure no slipping
between main pulley and wire. For storage/release the wire
task, this system uses an active wire accumulator instead of
using a passive spring - dancer arm mechanism as
commercial tension device. The active wire accumulator

2014 International Conference on Advances in Computing,Communications and Informatics (ICACCI) 767

consists of a roller for transporting the wire called where k is the coefficient stiffness of spring.
accumulator roller, a spring for generating a reaction force The rotating motion of main pulley is described as follows
against the tension force in wire, and a pneumatic cylinder (see Fig. 5c):
for controlling the spring force. One end of spring is fixed to
free roller while the other end is fixed to the piston rod of I pθp = Trp − M (9)
pneumatic cylinder. The length of spring can be adjusted by
the stroke of piston rod which is operated by a servo valve.
The direction of wire which is delivered from main pulley to where rp , I p , θ p are a radius, inertia of moment, and
wire accumulator is kept with no change by a free roller. For rotating angle of main pulley, respectively, and M is the
feedback control, wire tension force T is measured by a load moment generated by DC torque motor.
cell, and wire delivering speed is measured by a tachometer. In addition, the wire delivering speed vd at main pulley is
To simplify a tension system modeling, some defined by:
assumptions are defined as follows:
vd = θp rp (10)
• The friction force and a mass of wire are ignored.
• A wire does not stretch during wire winding
process. The wire winding speed vw at winding pin is defined by:
• A wire only rolls on main pulley purely without
slipping. drwi (t )
• There is no dynamic viscous and friction force in vw = (11)
dt
pneumatic cylinder.
• Tension force T is uniform at any part of the wire.
It notes that the i th winding radius rwi (t ) is a piecewise
The free body diagrams (FBD) of all parts in tension system continuous function in limited range which defined by (1),
are shown in Fig. 5: (2), (3), (4), and (5).
According to pulley block principle, the wire transporting
Bore
speed vt at accumulator roller is defined by:
Fx T
xa mb
rp vt = 2 xa (12)
xb
ma Fc
θp M When the wire winding speed increases due to the changing
T T
Fx of winding radius by the time, the wire is stretched. It means
that the wire tension increases. To keep wire tension at
a. FBD of b. FBD of c. FBD of main pulley constant value, the wire delivering speed at main pulley
accumulator roller pneumatic cylinder should be increased while the wire transporting speed at
Fig. 5 Free body diagram accumulator roller should be decreased sufficiently. The
The linear motion of accumulator roller is described by the winding speed vw at the winding pin is given as:
following equation (see Fig. 5a):
vw = vd − vt (13)
xa = Fx − 2T
ma  (6)
From (10), (11), and (12), the following equation is
where ma is a mass of accumulator roller, xa is the obtained:
displacement of accumulator roller, T is a wire tension force,
and the symbol Fx denotes for the reaction force of spring. drwi (t ) 
= θ p rp − 2 xa (14)
The linear motion of bore is described as follows (see Fig. dt
5b):
III. CONTROLLER DESIGN
xb = Fc − Fx
mb  (7)
First, the relative displacement X , the control inputs U1 ,
where Fc is the force generated by the pneumatic cylinder, and U 2 , and disturbance input U 3 are defined as:
and the symbols mb , xb are denoted as the mass and the
displacement of bore, respectively. drwi
X = xa − xb , U1 = Fc , U 2 = M , U 3 = (15)
The reaction force Fx in (6), and (7) is defined by: dt
Fx = k ( xa − xb ) (8)

768 2014 International Conference on Advances in Computing,Communications and Informatics (ICACCI)

By multiplying (6), and (7) to ma , mb , respectively, we can ­ x1 = x2
get the following equations: °
® 1
° x2 = m m ( w1 x1 − w2 )
¯ (25)
xa = kmb X − 2mbT
a b
ma mb  (16)
§ ma · § 2kI p ·
y =T =¨ x + U 2 rp + I pU 3 ¸
xb = maU1 − kma X
ma mb  (17) ¨ m r 2 − 4 I ¸¸ ¨ m 1
© a p p ¹© a ¹

Then subtracting (17) from (16), the following equation is Since the objective is to study a new tension system which
achieved: is applied to coil winding machine, this paper employs a
traditional PID algorithm for evaluating the performance of
ma mb X − k (ma + mb ) X + 2mbT + maU1 = 0 (18) the system. In this system, there are two inputs while there
is only single output. Therefore, it is appropriate to adopt
Taking derivative (14) by the time, it yields: two PID controllers for generating two inputs with same
defined error.
U 3 = θp rp − 2 
xa (19) By defining the reference tension force as Tr , the error
of system in (25) is given by:
By multiplying (19) to I p and using (9), it yields:
e = Tr − T (26)
I pU 3 = (Trp − U 2 )rp − 2 I p 
xa (20)
Two PID controllers are given by:
Taking xa from (6) and substituting to (20), it becomes:
U1 = ( Fc ) = K p1e + Ki1 ³ edt + K d 1e
(27)
§ kX − 2T · U 2 = ( M ) = K p 2 e + K i 2 ³ edt + K d 2 e
I pU 3 = (Trp − U 2 )rp − 2 I p ¨ ¸ (21)
© ma ¹
where K pj , Kij , K dj ( j = 1 − 2) are controller gains.
From (21), the tension force T as output is determined by: The block diagram of the proposed tension control system is
shown as follows:
§ ma · § 2kI p ·
T =¨ ¸¸ ¨ X + U 2 rp + I pU 3 ¸ (22) e
¨ ma rp2 − 4 I p m K p1
© ¹© a ¹ +
U3
³e + U1
³ K i1
Substituting T from (22) to (18), the following equation is d e
Kd1 +
obtained as: Tr
+
e dt T
Plant
e K p2
ma mb X − w1 X + w2 = 0 (23) _
+
³e + U2
³ Ki 2
where d e +
Kd 2
dt
4kmb I p
w1 = k ( ma + mb ) −
ma rp2 − 4 I p Fig. 6 Block diagram of the proposed tension control system

§ 2ma mb ·
w2 = ¨
¨ ma rp2 − 4 I p ¸¸ ( I pU 3 + U 2 rp ) + maU1 IV. SIMULATION RESULTS
© ¹ The parameters used in simulation are given as follows:
ma = 0.2kg , mb = 0.1kg , k = 3 N m, rp = 50mm,
The state variables are defined as follows:
I p = 0.25 g m 2 , l1 = 35mm, l2 = 15mm, l3 = 75mm,
x1 = X l4 = 25mm. The wire winding speed is set running at
(24)
x2 = x1 = X 600rpm. This means that one of wire turn is wound around
coil tooth in 1 second. The sampling time is set at 1
The system in (22), and (23) can be expressed in state space:
milisecond for simulation. The PID parameters are given by
k p1 = 20, ki1 = 30, kd 1 = 3, k p 2 = 0.01, ki 2 = 1, kd 2 = 0.003.

2014 International Conference on Advances in Computing,Communications and Informatics (ICACCI) 769

 The winding angle α and winding radius rwi are described
by Figs. 7 and 8, respectively.
Fig. 7 The winding angle α
2 6
1-
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Sta Sta
Fig. 8 The winding radius rwi
In Fig. 7, the winding angle α changes from 0 to
π
2(
rad ) in one cycle. Since the shape of coil tooth is
rectangle, the variation of winding angle is repeated after a
half of cycle. The winding radius rwi which is shown in
Fig. 8 changes from 5mm to 55mm in stage 1 – 2 and stage
5 – 6 while it changes 25mm to 30mm in stage 3 – 4 and
stage 7 – 8. At the moment between stage 2 and stage 3 (0.3
second) as well as between stage 6 and stage 7 (0.8 second),
the winding radius changes quickly with large amount of
variation. The wire tension force which is controlled by two
PID controllers is shown in Fig. 9.
3
Stage 1- 2 Stage 5- 6
ge
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Sta
Sta
Fig. 9 Tension force – the output of system
For aluminum wire, the wire tension is recommended
setting at 0.3 – 0.5kg in the case of wire diameter 0.5mm
[10]. Therefore, the reference tension force is set equal 5N
for simulation. The output tension force almost reaches to
the reference at 0.8 second. At the moment among stages,
the variation of winding radius makes the output tension
force be fluctuated. However, the amplitude of variation of
the output tension force is decreasing by the time. It shows
that the performance of the proposed system is good.
770 2014 International Conference on Advances in Computing,Communications and Informatics (ICACCI)
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V. CONCLUSION
In this paper, a tension system which was used for coil
winding machine in BLDC motor manufacturing was
proposed. The tension system adopted a mechanism of
pneumatic cylinder - spring as a wire accumulator. For
delivering a wire, a DC torque motor is employed to drive a
main pulley. In order to control the wire tension force, two
PID controllers was used to drive the moment of DC torque
motor and the force of pneumatic cylinder. The performance
of PID based controller is evaluated in simulation and shows
that the output of tension system is stable.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This work (Grants No. C0149697) was supported by
Business for Cooperative R&D between Industry, Academy,
and Research Institute funded Korea Small and Medium
Bussiness Administration in 20.
5-
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