MODULE 5 – ELECTRICAL DRIVES

Electrical drives in Robotics

ELECTRIC MOTORS

AC MOTORS DC MOTORS

SYNCHRONOUSMOTORS INDUCTION MOTORS BRUSHED MOTORS BRUSHLESS MOTORS

DC Motor

A DC motor converts direct current electrical power into mechanical power.These motors can further
be classified into brushed DC motor and brushless DCmotors. The main parts of any motor include a
stator and a rotor.

Brush type DC motor

A brushed motor consists of an armature coil, slip rings divided into two parts, a pair of brushes and
horse shoes electromagnet as shown in the figure. The electromagnet has two field poles namely a
north pole and a south pole. The magnetic lines of force extend across the opening between the poles
from north to south (B).
The armature coil is wound around a soft iron core and is placed in between the magnet poles. The
coil ends are connected to split rings. The carbon brushes are in contact with the split rings. The

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brushes are connected to a DC source. Here the split rings rotate with the coil while the brushes
remain stationary. The working is based on the principle that when a current-carrying conductor is
placed in a magnetic field, it experiences a mechanical force whose direction is given by Fleming's
left-hand rule. As shown in the figure below, the direction of the current ‘I’ and magnetic field ‘B’ is
perpendicular to each other which creates a torque on the armature coil and hence rotates the
armature.
Thus electric current is converted into mechanical rotation.

Brushless DC motor (BLDC)

The rotor and stator of a BLDC motor are shown in the above figure. The Rotor of a BLDC is a
permanent magnet; the stator has a winding arrangement. The stator has 3 coils, named A, B and C.
By applying DC power to the coil, the coil will energize and become an electromagnet.
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The operation of a BLDC is based on the simple force interaction between the permanent magnet and
the electromagnet. In this condition, when the coil A is energized, the opposite poles of the rotor and
stator are attracted to each other. As a result the rotor poles move near to the energized stator. The
rotor moves towards the energized coil, due to the attractive force. As the rotor nears coil A, coil B is
energized. As the rotor nears coil B, coil C is energized. After that, coil A is energized with the
opposite polarity. In a BLDC, as the rotor nears the energized coil, the next coil is energized; this will
make the rotor continuously rotate. This process is repeated, and the rotor continues to rotate.

Advantages of brushless DC motor:

 More precise due to computer control

 More efficient
 No sparking due to absence of brushes
 Less electrical noise
 No brushes so no wear.
 Electromagnets are situated on the stator hence easy to cool
 Motor can operate at speeds above 10,000 rpm under loaded and unloaded conditions
 Responsiveness and quick acceleration due to low rotor inertia

Disadvantages of brushless DC motor:

 Higher initial cost.

 Complex due to presence of computer controller.

 Brushless DC motor also requires additional system wiring in order to power the electronic
commutation circuitry.

AC Motor

An AC motor is an electric motor driven by an alternating current (AC). The AC motor

commonly consists of two basic parts, an outside stationary stator having coils supplied with
alternating current to produce a rotating magnetic field, and an inside rotor attached to the
output shaft producing a second rotating magnetic field. The rotor magnetic field may be
produced by permanent magnets, reluctance saliency, or DC or AC electrical windings.

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Synchronous AC Motor

Here, the rotor is a permanent magnet. A rotating magnetic field (RMF) is created in the stator due to
the AC supply. Current flowing through conductors energizes the magnets and develops North and
South poles. The poles on the permanent magnet get attracted towards the opposite poles of the
stator and start rotating due to the rotating magnetic field of the stator.
The rotor rotates at the same speed of the RMF and it is known as synchronous speed. It is generally
given by,

where ‘f’ is the frequency of the AC supply and ‘P’ the number of poles.

Induction AC Motor

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In an induction motor, the permanent magnet in case of the synchronous motor is replaced by a
conducting material rotor. The stator is supplied with the AC. As a result, a rotating magnetic field
(RMF) is developed.
When the rotor is placed in this magnetic field, an electric current is induced. Thus magnetic flux is
developed. This magnetic flux interacts with the magnetic field of the stator and thus the rotor starts
rotating.
Here, the rotor does not rotate with the same speed (synchronous speed) of the RMF. The difference
between the synchronous speed and the rotor speed is known as slip. This motor is also known as
asynchronous rotor.

Stepper Motor

A stepper motor is a brushless DC electric motor that divides a full rotation into a number of equal
steps. The motor's position can then be commanded to move and hold at one of these steps without
any feedback sensor (an open- loop controller), as long as the motor is carefully sized to the
application in respect to torque and speed.

Types of stepper motors

There are mainly three types of stepper motors:

 Permanent Magnet Stepper Motors
 Variable Reluctance Stepper Motors
 Hybrid Stepper Motors

Permanent Magnet Stepper Motors

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In this type of motor, the rotor is a permanent magnet and is designed to be magnetized at a
right angle to its axis. The figure above shows a simple 90⁰ PM motor with four phases (A-D).
Applying current to each phase in sequence will magnetize the coils and it will cause the
rotor to rotate by adjusting to the changing magnetic fields. The PM stepper motor operates
at fairly low speed but has relatively high torque characteristics. These are low cost motors
with typical step angle ranging between 7.5⁰ to 15⁰.

Variable Reluctance STEPPER Motor

The above figure shows the construction of a Variable Reluctance motor. The cylindrical rotor is
made of soft steel and has four poles as shown in the figure above. It has four rotor teeth, 90⁰apart
and six stator poles, 60°apart. Electromagnetic field is produced by activating the stator coils in
sequence. It attracts the metal rotor. The poles of the rotor will be attracted to those stator poles
where the air gap is minimum and hence minimum reluctance. When the windings are energized in a
reoccurring sequence of 2, 3, 1, and so on, the motor will rotate in a 30⁰step angle. In the non-
energized condition, there is no magnetic flux in the air gap, as the stator is an electromagnet and the
rotor is a piece of soft iron; hence, there is no detent torque. This type of stepper motor is called a
variable reluctance stepper motor.

Hybrid stepper motor

Hybrid stepper motors combine a permanent magnet and a rotor with metal teeth to provide features
of the variable reluctance and permanent magnet motors together. The number of rotor pole pairs is

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equal to the number of teeth on one of the rotor’s parts. The hybrid motor stator has teeth creating
more poles than the main poles windings. Rotation of a hybrid stepping motor is similar to a
permanent magnet stepping motor, by energizing individual windings in a positive or negative
direction. When a winding is energized, north and south poles are created, depending on the polarity
of the current flowing. These generated poles attract the permanent poles of the rotor and also the
finer metal teeth present on rotor. The rotor moves one step to align the magnetized rotor teeth to the
corresponding energized windings. Hybrid motors are more expensive than motors with permanent
magnets, but they use smaller steps, have greater torque and maximum speed.

Step angle = 360°Number of poles

Advantages of stepper motors

• Low cost
• Ruggedness
• Simplicity of construction
• Low maintenance
• Less likely to stall or slip
• Will work in any environment
• Excellent start-stop and reversing responses
Disadvantages of stepper motors
• Low torque capacity compared to DC motors

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• Limited speed
• During overloading, the synchronization will be broken. Vibration and noise occur when
running at high speed.
Servomotors
A servo system mainly consists of three basic components – a controlled device, an output
sensor, a feedback system. This is an automatic closed loop control system. Here, the device is
controlled by a feedback signal generated by comparing output signal and reference input signal.
A servo motor is an electrical device which can push or rotate an object with great precision. If motor
used is DC powered then it is called DC servo motor, and if it is AC powered motor then it is called
AC servo motor.

Working of Servomotors
A servo consists of a Motor (DC or AC), a potentiometer, gear assembly and a controlling circuit. This
signal obtained from the feedback loop as shown above is fed to the comparator (error detector). The
input reference signal is also fed to the comparator. The difference in the feedback signal and the
input signal produces the error signal which is amplified in the amplifier and this is fed as the input for
servomotor and motor starts rotating. Now as the motor shaft rotates, at a particular condition, there
will be no output signal from the amplifier to the motor input as there is no difference between
external applied signal and the signal generated at potentiometer, and in this situation motor stops
rotating.

Working of DC Servomotors
As shown in the figure below, the DC servo motor will be connected to the output shaft. A position
sensor will be connected to the output shaft. This feedback signal from the sensor will be fed to the
amplifier. A reference signal will also be fed to the amplifier. On comparison of the feedback signal
and the reference signal, an error signal will be produced. This will be fed to the DC motor. The DC
motor will rotate according to the error signal received and thus correct the position or velocity of the
output shaft.

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Working of AC Servomotors

The working principle of two phase AC servomotor is same as that of normal three phase induction
motor. The control voltage is applied to the control winding. A reference voltage is applied to the
reference winding. Both the windings are at 90° out of phase with respect to each other. Hence the
fluxes produced by the flow of current through the two coils will also be 90° out of phase. Thus, a
resultant flux will be produced in the air gap. The rotor will rotate according to the same principle as
that of induction AC motor.

Torque – Speed Characteristics of AC Servomotors

A servomotor must have the following characteristics:
 Linear torque-speed characteristics
 Slope of the torque-speed characteristics must be negative.
 The characteristics must be parallel to one another for various values of the control voltage.

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Harmonic Drive
Harmonic drive is a strain wave gear which can improve certain characteristics compared to
traditional gearing systems. They are typically used in industrial motion control, machine tool, printing
machine, robotics and aerospace, for gear reduction.

The main elements of a harmonic drive are as shown above:

 A rigid circular Spline
 Flexi Spline
 An elliptical wave generator
The wave generator is of elliptical shape and it fits inside the flexi spline. The flexi spline is the main
component of a harmonic drive which can generate a repeated vibration by the wave generator. The
flexi spline should have flexibility and good vibration characteristics.

Operating Principle
The flexi spline is slightly smaller in diameter than the circular spline and it has two teeth lesser than
the circular spline. The elliptical shape of the wave generator causes the teeth of the flexi spline to

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engage with the circular spline at the two opposite regions across the major axis of the ellipse as
shown in the figure.
As the wave generator rotates, the teeth of the fexi spline engages with the circular spline at the
major axis.
For every 180° clockwise movement of the wave generator, the flexi spline rotates anticlockwise by
one tooth in relation to the circular spline.
Thus for one completed rotation of the wave generator, the flexi spline moves in the anticlockwise
direction by two teeth from its original position relative to the circular spline.

Advantages
 No backlash
 High compactness and lightweight
 High gear ratios
 Reconfigurable ratios within a standard housing.
 Good resolution and excellent repeatability (linear representation) when repositioning inertial
loads.
 High torque capability,
 Coaxial input and output shafts.

Sensors in Robotics
The main sensors used in robot systems are as follows:
 Force and tactile sensors
 Range Sensors or range finders.

Force Sensors
Refer Module 1 notes.

Tactile Sensors
A tactile sensor is a device that measures information arising from physical interaction with its
environment. Tactile sensors are used in robotics, computer hardware and security systems. A
common application of tactile sensors is in touch screen devices on mobile phones and computing.
Tactile sensors maybe of different types including piezoresistive, piezoelectric, capacitive and elasto-
resistive sensors.

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In piezoresistive type tactile sensor, the pressure on the element causes the material to compress,
changing its resistance.

In capacitive based tactile sensor, the mechanical deformation changes the capacitance of parallel
conducting plates.

Range Sensors
Thefunctionofarangefinderistomeasurethedistancefromareferencepointnormallyonthesensoritself,to
objects in the field of operation of the sensor.

Range sensors are used for robot navigation and obstacle avoidance, where the distance to the
nearest object is estimated.

Types of range finders are:

• Ultrasonic
• Light based range finders

Ultrasonic Range Finder (Sensor)

The ultrasonic sensors can be used as range sensor in robots as well as proximity sensors, which is
independent of the sensing material. It mainly consists of a ceramic piezoelectric transducer, which is
protected by a resin layer against humidity, dust, dirt and other environmental factors. It also acts as
an acoustic impedance matcher.
Ultrasonic distance sensor determines the distance to an object by measuring the time taken by the
sound to reflect back from that object. A typical ultrasonic distance sensor consists of two
membranes. One membrane produces sound, another catches reflected echo. Basically they are
speaker and microphone. The sound generator generates short ultrasonic impulses and triggers the

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timer. Second membrane registers the arrival of the sound impulse and stops the timer. From the
timers’ time it is possible to calculate the distance traveled by the sound. The distance to the object is
half of the distance traveled by the sound wave.

Light Based Range Sensor

Optical distance-measuring devices typically use the coincidence method of determining distance
which uses a series of lenses and mirrors to produce a double image. The double images on mirrors
are brought together by rotating a dial until both images merge into one. The dial has a distance
indicator. When the two images merge, the distance to the target is read directly off the dial.

Methods using light based range sensor

 Triangulation Method
 Time of flight Method

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Triangulation Method
Triangulation is a geometric method; useful for measuring distances in the range of 1 mm to many
kilometers using a laser. It uses the ability of a laser beam to propagate in a well-collimated form over
large distances. The laser beam illuminates a point the distance of which from the laser device is
going to be measured. Reflections from that point are monitored with a position-sensitive
detector which is mounted in some distance from the laser beam, such that the laser source, the
object and the detector form a triangle. Distance information is obtained from the recorded beam
position on the detector.

Time of Flight Method

This method is based on measuring the time of flight of a laser pulse from the measurement device to
some target and back again. Here, an apparatus sends out a short optical pulse and measures the
time until a reflected portion of the pulse is monitored. The distance is then calculated as half the
measured round-trip time divided by the velocity of light. The
time-of-flight method is typically used for large distances such as hundreds of meters or many
kilometers.
One common example of this approach is phase measurement in which the laser’s output is typically
sinusoidal and the phase of the outgoing signal is compared with that of the reflected light.

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