Projects

  • Permanent Magnet AC Motor Driver

  • VFD for Consumer Induction Motors

  • CNC Machine

  • ARManda - a 4DOF desktop robotic manipulator

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AS5048A Magnetic Encoder and STM32

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This past week I began to write the controller firmware - mainly playing with the AS5048A angular position sensor from AMS. Here is the datasheet .  This sensor will be used to get the rotor position and then compute the resulting electrical angle for the Clarke/Park transforms and also it will be used to find rotor speed for the out loop.  I will be using an STM32F446 board to run the loop as it has a high clock speed. The AS5048A sends its measurements over SPI. Below is the read package sent from the sensor: We get 14 bits of position data - aka 16384 ticks per revolution, or a resolution of 0.0219 degrees. I wrote this read() function that sends the SPI command package and reads the resulting response: uint16_t read(uint16_t registerAddress) { uint16_t command = 0x4000; // PAR=0 R/W=R uint8_t RxBuff[2]; uint8_t TxBuff[2]; command = command | registerAddress; command |= (uint16_t) (spiCalcEvenParity(command) << 0xF); TxBuff[0] = command >> 8; TxBuf...
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Pseudo-FOC Controller - Simulations and Inital

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As a part of my FOC controller, I am developing an intermediate project - the  Pseudo-FOC Controller. This post will introduce the theory, simulations, and an initial prototype of the project. At its core, this controller uses sinusoidal commutation, which is being implemented through the inverse Park and Clarke transforms. Project Goals The goals of this project are listed below: Control torque, speed, and position of a PMSM - specifically for gimbal and drone grade motors Develop a PCB for the controller Develop auto-tuning algorithms for controller gains Develop an auto-calibration sequence for the rotor position sensor BLDC vs PMSM A key point of confusion is motor classification of permanent magnet machines - specifically between Brushless DC Motors  (BLDCs) and Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motors (PMSMs). In my experience/readings, the differing factors is in their back-emf profile: BLDCs having a trapezoidal BEMF and PMSMs having a sinusoidal BEMF. It is also important ...
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Variable Frequency Drive for Induction Motors - Overview and Design

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I began a new project to design and construct a Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) for AC induction motors. The purpose of this project is for me to apply some of my power electronics knowledge of inverter design and also aid me in my FOC project since the power stage of this drive is similar (FOC just has more complex control algorithms). This post will cover some the high level design considerations and some preliminary simulation of the VFD. Background - Induction Motors To me motor drives are super interesting as AC motors are used everywhere and they are the basis of many machines. More specifically, AC induction motors (invented by Nikola Tesla) are the most popular motor kind - 90% of motors used in industrial and commercial applications are induction type.  To see how a VFD works it is important to know how an induction motor works. At a high level, the induction motor, like many AC motors, is made up of a stator and a rotor. The stator is made up of windings - for a three-phas...
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