2012 IEEE International Conference on Power Electronics, Drives and Energy Systems

December16-19, 2012, Bengaluru, India

A Low Cost Fast Data Acquisition System for

Capturing Electric Motor Starting and Dynamic Load
Transients
R. T. Ugale, S. K. Dond, B. N. Chaudhari, A. A. Tembe
Electrical Engineering Department Industrial Control and Automation
College of Engineering Pune [COEP] Associated Electrodyne, MIDC, Bhosari
Pune, India Pune, India
e-mail: rtu.elec@coep.ac.in e-mail: amoltembe@gmail.com

Abstract—The hardware design and operation of a microcontrollers are also getting populer due to their reduced
microcontroller-based data acquisition system (herein referred to instruction set and high performance capabilities [9,10].
as the DAS) for electric motor transient measurements are In this work a low-cost PIC microcontroller-based data
presented. The system was designed around the PIC16F877, 8-bit acquisition system was developed and applied to induction
microcontroller and applied for electric motor. The measurement
motor. Collection, recording and transmission of the measured
system uses the current, torque and speed sensors. The data from
these sensors is collected by means of serial analog to digital data for archival storage and analysis are done for machine
converter (ADC) and uploaded to a portable computer through parameters during starting operation. This system is well
the RS232 serial port for subsequent analysis. Plotting and data suited for industrial testing and laboratory experiments related
analysis is done using Matlab serial communication. Laboratory to motor transient analysis under dynamic operating
tests are carried out using developed DAS for capturing conditions like starting, stopping, sudden load changes and
induction motor transients and comparisons of thease measured various system fault studies.
results against the standard DSO, scope corder and Matlab
simulation results has shown a good agreement. II. SYSTEM AND HARDWARE DESIGN
Keywords— capturing, data acquisition, electric motor, A fast, programmable, compact, low cost, 8-bit data
interface, interrupt, microcontroller, serial, transients acquisition system is developed and the overall system
configuration is shown in Fig. 1. The system immediately
gives the data plot and automatically retents data in the system
I. INTRODUCTION
memory and PC hard disc for later analysis.
Though steady state operation of motors at fixed balanced
voltage, frequency and load is common, transient operation
studies under run-up, re-switching, braking, load change and
short circuit conditions require suitable analytical models
described in [1]. Modeling of motor in software gives the
starting and dynamic load performance of motors [2]. Due to
limited practical facilities, many times the simulations study
data is taken as a reference data without experimentation.
Even today the transient data acquisition and plotting in
laboratories and industrial installations demands for high end
equipments like scope corder or DSO. These instruments have
good features but they are costlier and do not provide
complete control access to user. A battery powered
microcontroller based data acquisition system for remote
measurements is presented [3]. The system was designed
using 8-bit ST62E20 microcontroller and applied for solar
radiation sensors. The parameters like temperature and
humidity are sensed remotely by conditioning analog and
digital signals [4]. A USB based DAS with two clock sources
for parallel information processing from different Fig. 1. Block diagram of data acquisition system
communication protocols is applied to renewable energy plant
[5]. PIC microcontrollers are being used in data acquision Fig. 2 shows the complete hardware configuration details of
systems for specific applications [6-8]. Advanced PIC the microcontroller-based fast data acquisition system.

This work is partially supported by Industrial Control and Automation,

Pune, India, mainly in PCB hardware development and software testing.

978-1-4673-4508-8/12/$31.00 ©2012 IEEE

Fig. 2. Complete circuit diagram of fast data acquisition system
 The system is featured to be versatile and all operations are
under software control and accessible to user. This will allow
for future expansion or modifications without the need for
major hardware changes. The system is connected to a
computer through the RS232 serial link to allow
communications and to download recorded data to the
computer for subsequent analysis.
Sensors used for data acquisition are speed sensor, load
cell as torque sensor and clamp on probe as current sensor.
Signal conditioning is required for current and torque signals.
Current sensor gives output in AC voltage (+/-) form and need
to convert in unipolar ADC reference voltage range. To shift
output of current sensor 1mV = 1 A to positive value, 1 V is
added to output of sensor using LM 358 operational amplifer.
Torque or force applied is identified in terms of resistance
change. The four strain guages are connected into Wheatstone
bridge configuration. The load cell output is 1mV = 0.1 N-m.
The speed sensor contains a magnetic coil of wire that is held
still next to a toothed disc. The disc is engaged by the shaft of
motor and spins at a rate relative to the motor speed. As it does,
its motion disrupts the magnetic field generated by the coil and
creates a series of electronic pulses. Frequency of pulses gives
equivalent voltage output. Its output voltage with speed change
is given by 1mV = 1rpm. The speed of selected 3 hp, 415 V,
4.2 A, 1440 rpm induction motor varies between 0 to nearly
1500 rpm giving sensor output of 0-1.5 V.
A 10K potentiometer is used to vary the gain of the
amplifier. DC supply is obtained by first step down the single
phase 230 V AC voltage to 12 V and then converting this to
DC voltage by diode bridge rectifier. A capacitor of 2200 uF is
used for reducing the ripples in DC voltage. The voltage
regulator LM 7805 is used for constant 5V and LM 317for
variable DC voltage supply. Connector CON 4 is 4 channel
receivers of output signals coming from signal conditioning
circuit. Header 8x2 is used for LCD connection. Sensor output
is given as input to operational amplifier at forth pin and output
of operational amplifier is taken from sixth pin of connnector,
CON 6. To add 1 V in sensors signal is generated by dividing
12 V supply. Similarly signal conditioning is prepared for
torque and speed signals. Speed signal is without any gain
adjustment. Fig.3. shows the operational amplifier circuit used
for signal conditioning.
The main component of the data acquisition system is the
PIC16F877 microcontroller that is driven by a 4 MHz crystal
oscillator. The microcontroller is a CMOS integrated circuit
designed for embedded control applications which is here used
to control measurement and serial communication. It has 364
bytes of data memory and 14 bit word 8K flash program
memory. It was chosen for this purpose because of its low-
power consumption, low-cost, von-neumann architecture,
RISC CPU and on chip SPI. A 12bit ADC MCP 3204 is used
which has serial interface with maximum sampling rate of 100
ksps when VDD = 5V. With a 5 V supply and 4.096
references derived from the MCP1541 voltage reference. The
converter has a resolution of 1 mV. To ensure optimum
system use and minimum power consumption, nearly all
control lines of the microcontroller are used effectively. The
MCP 1541 is used to give constant reference voltage 4.096 V
to ADC. Input signals from signal conditioning circuit are
given to ADC with RC filter and zener diode to reduce the
ripples and to limit input voltage of signals respectively.
Microcontroller is driven by a 4 MHz crystal oscillator.
Interface with ADC and memory is done with common SCL,
SDA, SDO pins but different CS (chip select) pins.
Microcontroller port pin RA4 used to give clock pulses to
ADC. Port B is used for LCD data lines. Reset pin VPP
connected to supply through 10K resistor. The proper
operation of each analog input line is verified by connecting
the reference voltage, through one of the switches to the ADC.
A digital conversion is made and the results transmitted to the
computer and compared against an expected digital output.
Serial interfacing between the data acquisition system and the
computer is implemented using the MAX232 line
driver/receiver which is used to convert TTL (0–5 V) voltages
required by the data acquisition system to the 12 V and 12 V
needed by the computer for RS232 communication. Only three
RS232 lines are used for serial communication in this
application. PB0, PA3 and ground from the microcontroller
are connected to the controlling computers RS232 transmit
data (Tx), receive data (Rx) and logic ground lines
respectively. The MAX232 serial interface chip is
incorporated in the detacable module, which acts as a data
transfer interface between the data acquisition system and the
computer.
Fig. 3. Signal conditioning circuit
Data send to computer is in asynchronous mode. When
transmitting a byte, the USART (serial port) first sends a
START BIT always a 0 (low) followed by the data of 8 bits,
followed by one STOP BIT(S) 1(high). The sequence is
repeated for each byte sent.
Fig. 4 shows the developed hardware system having main
components like power supply, signal conditioning and
microcontroller, system internal memory and RS 232
communication. The data is transferred to PC and stored in
the hard disk. It is also possible to capture the transient data
and plot the characteristic with respect to time.
 Fig. 4. Signal conditioning and main DAS hardware Fig. 5. Experimental setup showing interface of motor, sensors, PC, developed
DAS and computer data plotting results

III. SOFTWARE DESIGN AND SYSTEM OPERATION

A. Microcontroller programming
The whole process of controlling the hardware system is
implemented by the PIC ‘C’ language programming. This
includes microcontroller interfacing with ADC and interfacing
with computer using an embedded USART. MPLAB IDE
software is used for microcontroller programming.

B. Serial Communication using Matlab

Matlab is widely used, interactive, technical computing
software. Matlab versions 6.1 and higher provide serial
communication functionality. The RS232 is used for serial
data communication, therefore an initialization need to be
done which are the baud rate, data bits, parity, stop bit and the
COM port at the PC. The baud rate is the number of signal
changes per second or transition speed between Mark
(negative) and Space (positive). Data bits are the bits carring
actual information; it has one Least Significant Bit (LSB) and
one Most Significant Bit (MSB). The parity bit is an optional
bit mainly for bit error checking. It can be odd, even, none
Mark and Space. Stop bit is used to frame up the data bits and
usually combined with the start bit. To convert samples in
time scale, in microcontroller programming, pulses are
generated on port pin after completion of each loop. Loop
consists of time from selecting ADC channel to sending its
value to serial communication. Those pulses are observed on
DSO and there duration is measured. The time between two
samples of signal is multiplied by the number of samples, this
gives time scale.
IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND VALIDATION
The experimental set up indicating current, speed, torque
sensors, developed DAS, induction motor and PC interface is
shown in Fig.5. Induction motor transients during no load
starting are obtained using Scope corder and shown in Fig.6.
Fig. 6. Induction motor no laod starting transients captured using
Scope corder (Yokogawa DL 750)
Performance obtained with developed DAS is then
compared with standard DSO, Yokogawa DL 750 scope
corder and Matlab simulation results. In developed DAS,
signals are sampled and given to computer continuously. After
receiving all samples on computer, Matlab gives plot of
signals. Fig.7.(a). and Fig.7.(b).shows induction motor no load
starting and no load to full load transients for current, speed
and torques obtained using developed DAS. Fig.8.(a) and Fig.
8.(b) shows induction motor no load starting and no load to
full load sudden load dynamics obtained with standard scope
corder. The torque pulsations are observed in DAS captured
signals. It is possible to reduce pulsations by adding suitable
filters in the system. The DAS operation and the dada aquired
for motor starting and dynamic load transients are confirmed
by different practical methods.
 Fig.8.(b). Sudden no load to full load motor transients obtained using Scope
Corder (DL750 Yokogawa)
Fig.7.(a). No load motor starting transients using DAS
Comparison of induction motor no load starting and
dynamic load transient results obtained by developed DAS,
standard DSO, standard scope corder, and Matlab simulation
are given in Table I and Table II respectively. The small
variation in the results is due to intrinsically small error
involved in digital data handling.

TABLE I. NO LOAD MOTOR STARTING : COMPARISON OF RESULTS

OBTAINED BY USING DEVELOPED DAS, DSO, SCOPE CORDER AND
SIMULATION

No load starting transients measured by

No load starting Std.
parameter Developed Simulati
Std. DSO Scope
DAS on
Corder
Peak current (Imax)A 37 38 39 26

Transient period (sec) 0.25 0.26 0.26 0.17

Torque (Tmax) N-m 80 87 78 63

Transient period (sec) 0.22 0.24 0.28 0.21

Fig. 7.(b). Sudden no load to full load transients obtained using DAS Speed (Nmax)rpm 1489 1492 1493 1500

Transient period (sec) 0.75 0.76 0.67 0.63

TABLE II. SUDDEN NO LOAD TO FULL LOAD VARIATION : COMPARISON

OF RESULTS OBTAINED BY USING DEVELOPED DAS, DSO, SCOPE CORDER
AND SIMULATION

No load to full load transients measured by

Dynamic load Std.
transient parameter Developed Simulat
Std. DSO Scope
DAS ion
Corder
Rated current (Imax) A 6.5 6.6 6.1 4.5

Rated torque (T) N-m 14 14.2 14 14.5

Rated speed (N) rpm 1438 1436 1445 1439

Transient period (sec) 0.34 0.36 0.33 0.39

Fig.8.(a). No load motor starting transients obtained using Scope corder

 V. CONCLUSIONS
A low-cost PIC microcontroller-based data acquisition
system has been designed, developed, programmed and
applied to capture induction motor transients under starting
and dynamic load variation. This data acquisition system has
been successfully interfaced to a computer. The data is
transferred to a computer by serial link with Matlab software
where it can be stored. The use of an embedded
microcontroller for control logic enables reconfiguration under
software control.
Laboratory test results of developed DAS and comparisons
against standard Scope corder, DSO, and Matlab simulation
results have shown fairly good agreement. The overall quality
of the data is good. System is fully controlled, easily operated
and could be used to acquire starting or dynamic transients of
any motor.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The authors wish to gratefully acknowledge the financial
support of DST, MHRD, India under FIST Scheme File. No.
SR/FST/ETI-129/2004 dated 27/06/2005 for strenthenging the
test facilities in the laboratory.
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