Papers and Articles

Conventional step “current chopper” drives result in a large amount of step motor noise, needless motor heating, and consume more current. A digital current loop will result in significantly quieter and lower temperature motor operation which is beneficial in many applications. This article details how a digital current loop will result in a significantly quieter, faster running and lower temperature motor operation which is beneficial in many applications.

Many motion applications require high accuracy both during, and at the end of, the move, but even if you are using perfectly optimized PID values to control position, the compensation loop is never perfect. You can improve motor performance by adding motion control elements outside of the PID loop. In this article, we will look at torque control and the related subject of torque FeedFoward, which will make your equipment run smoother, and deliver better accuracy.

Is servo motor tuning rocket science or a walk in the park? You decide! This article offers an overview of proportional, integral, derivative (PID) based servo tuning, and two standard manual tuning methods that work well for a large variety of machine designs. It shows that optimal parameters vary with application and performance goals, even for the exact same motor and amplifier setup.

Brushless DC, step, and DC brush motors are the three most commonly used motor types for positioning and velocity motion control applications. Of these, brushless DC and step motors are “multi-phase,” meaning they require some type of external coil excitation. Explore the most popular techniques for multi-phase motor control, including Field-oriented Control (FOC), and determine which techniques work best for various positioning and high-speed spinning applications.

Explore why a machine is exhibiting mechanical resonant frequency and what tools can be used to analyze it.