Module 2

Stepper motor
 STEPPER MOTOR
 Stepper motors is a special electrical machines which rotates in discrete
angular steps in response to each input current pulse received by its
controller.

 Each step moves the shaft in a fixed angle. It is also called stepping motors
or step motors.

 Stator has mutlipole multiphase windings.

 Rotor has no windings, but has salient poles which may or may not have
permanent magnet.

 When each phase is energised in sequence using current pulse, the motor
will rotate one step at a time.

 Rotation is caused by magnetic interaction between rotor poles and poles of

sequentially energized stator windings.
So a stepper motor converts a train of input pulses to a train of step movements.
The angle through which the the motor shaft rotates for each current pulse is
called the step angle.
 The application of stepper motor ranges from small wrist watch to artificial
satellite.
 It is available with power ranges of 1 to 0.25 kW.
 Torque range of 1micro Nm to 40 Nm.
 Ideally suited for applications where either precise positioning or precise speed
control or both are required in automation systems.
 As there is no feedback signal from the rotor shaft, it can be used for open loop
position control or controlled with feedback.
 Applications
 Position Control : Stepper motor can be used in applications requiring
precise position control such as 3D printers, X-ray machine, CNC machines,
Camera platforms and X-Y Plotters.

Speed Control : It can also be used for precise speed control applications such
as process automation and robotics.

Many industrial applications such as:

• Printers.

• Disk Drives

• Machine Tools.

• Watches, synchronized clocks, tape drives.

Advantages of Stepper Motor

1. Construction is simple.
2. Less expensive
3. It operates at full torque at standstill
4. Less maintenance is required
5. Higher accuracy in position control
6. A wide range of rotational speeds can be achieved
7. It can be driven in open loop without feedback.
8. Very reliable since there are no contact brushes in the motor.
Disadvantages of Stepper Motor

1. It draws more current as compared to the DC motor.

2. Torque decreases when the speed increases
3. Less efficiency.
4. Fixed step angle.
5. Control is difficult at higher speed
6. Limited power output.
Step angle ( β)
• Step angle is defined as the angle through which the rotor of a
stepper motor moves when one command pulse is received at the
input of the stator. It is denoted by β. The angular position of a
stepper motor is decided by the step angle and is expressed in
degrees.

Where Nr and Ns are number of rotor and stator teeth respectively.

 The step angle can also be determined using the number of stator
phases (m) and the number of rotor teeth (Nr) by the expression
Resolution (steps/rev)

 It is defined as the number of steps needed to complete 1

revolution of motor shaft.
 The accuracy of positioning by stepper motor depends on
the resolution.
 Smaller the step angle, higher will be the resolution.
Higher the resolution greater will be the accuracy.
 Resolution = 360 / step angle β
 Shaft speed = β * f / 360
• Problem 1:-If a stepper motor has 6 stator poles and having 30 stator
teeth. If rotor has 20 teeth, calculate the stepping angle and resolution.
• Problem 2:- A stepper motor has a step angle of 2.4◦ . Find the
resolution and the number of steps required to cause 100 revolutions.
Also find the shaft speed, if the stepping frequency is 1800 pulse/sec.
• Solution
Types of Stepper Motors

• Stepper motors are usually classified into three main

categories, namely,

1) Variable reluctance (single stack and multi stack)

2) Permanent Magnet

3) Hybrid motors
VARIABLE RELUCTANCE STEPPER MOTORS

It consists of a soft iron multi-toothed rotor and a wound stator.

The stator windings are energized with DC current.
Direction of rotation of motor is independent of the polarity of the stator.
Classified into single stack type multi-stack type.
A rotor step takes place when one stator phase is de-energized and the
next phase in sequence is energized, thus creating a new position of
minimum reluctance for the rotor.
a) Single Stack Variable Reluctance Stepper
Motors

Fig. 1 : a) Basic circuit configuration of a typical 3-phase, 6/4-pole, single-

stack, variable reluctance stepper motor and : b) its electrical connection.
Single stack variable reluctance stepper motor contd…
o Single stack variable reluctance stepper motor has a
laminated silicon steel stator and has projecting poles.
o Stator poles carries a concentric windings. The field
windings of opposite poles are connected in series. The
two coils are connected in such a way that their magnetic
flux gets added. The two coils form a phase.
oThe rotor also consists of laminated projecting poles.
Rotor has no winding and there is no electrical
connection.
o In order to have self-starting capability and bi-directional
rotation, the number of stator and rotor poles are not
equal.
 Single stack variable reluctance stepper motor contd…
 Figure 1a shows a three phase, six pole variable reluctance stepper motor. It
consists of three phases, A, B and C and each phase is energised by electric
pulse.
 Its Electrical connection is shown figure 1 b. Coil A and A’ are connected in
series forms A phase winding. Similarly, coil B and B’ are connected in series
and forms B phase and coils C and C’ in series forms C phase windings.
 The DC source is connected to phase A , phase B and phase C through switches
S1, S2 and S3 respectively.

Modes of Operation

Different modes of operation of variable reluctance motors are

1. Mode I – Full step operation
2. Mode 2 - Two phase ON mode
3. Mode 3 - Half-step Operation
 Mode 1 – Full step operation
 In this mode of operation, only one phase of stepper motor is energized at any time.
When the switch S1 is on, current is applied to the phase A and the coils of phase 1 and 4
are excited.
 The reluctance torque causes the rotor to align with the axis of phase A.

Fig. 2
 Mode 1 – Full step operation contd…
 The rotor teeth 1 and 3 are attracted to the stator teeth 1 and 4 respectively as
shown in Figure 2(a). Then angle θ = 0 ◦ and the rotor cannot move until another
phase is energized.

 Next, the switch S2 is turned on and switch S1 is turned off. Now the phase A is de-
energised and the phase B is energised so that the stator teeth 3 and 6 are energised.

 The rotor teeth 2 and 4 would align with stator teeth 3 and 6 respectively as shown
in Figure 2(b). The rotor rotates in the clockwise (CW) direction and makes an angular
displacement of 30◦ ( step angle = 30◦) . The rotor gets attracted to the stator poles
until the switch S2 is turned off.

Then phase C is energised by turning on S3 and the phase B is de-energised by

turning off S2 . Now the stator teeth 2 and 5 are energised. The stator teeth 2 and 5
would align with rotor teeth 1 and 3 respectively as shown in Figure 2(c). The rotor
rotates in the clockwise (CW) direction and makes an angle of 30◦ . So a total angular
displacement of 60◦ is obtained in the clockwise direction.
 Mode 1 – Full step operation contd…
 Now again the switch S1 is turned on and the switch S3 is
turned off. Now the stator teeth 1 and 4 are energised.

 The stator teeth 1 and 4 would align with rotor teeth 4 and 2
respectively as shown in Figure 2(d).

So if the switches are closing the in the sequence S1-S2-S3-S1

and thus energizing stator phases in sequence A-B-C-A , the
rotor will rotate in the clockwise direction with a step angle of
30◦ .

Also if we the switches are closing in the sequence S3-S2-S1-S3

and thus energizing stator phases in sequence C-B-A-C , the
rotor will rotate in the anti-clockwise direction with a step
angle of 30◦ . This operation of stepper motor is called full step
operation.
Truth table of full step operation is shown in Table 1

Table 1 –Truth table

• MODE 2 : Two-phase-ON Mode

In this mode of operation, two stator phases are energised

simultaneously.
•MODE 2 : Two-phase-ON Mode

When the switches S1 and S2 ON, the phases A and B are energized
together and the rotor experiences attraction from both phases. Due
to the torque from phase A and phase B, the rotor comes to rest in a
point mid-way between the two adjacent full step position. The
rotor will rotate in the clockwise direction with an angle of 15◦

If the stator phases are switched in the sequence AB-BC-CA-AB etc.,
the motor will take full steps of 30◦ each in the clockwise direction. If
the stator phases are switched in the sequence AC-CB-BA-AC etc.,
the motor will take full steps of 30◦ each in the anti-clockwise
direction.
 Mode 3 : Half-step Operation
This method is the combination of one phase ON and two phase
ON mode of operations.
 In this mode of operation, the step angle obtained is half of the
full step angle.

Fig. 4
 Mode 3 : Half-step Operation contd.
 Half-step operation is obtained by exciting the three phases in the
sequence A-AB-B-BC-C-CA etc. So this method uses 1-phase-ON and
2-phase-ON modes alternately.

 This method is also known as wave excitation and it causes the

rotor to advance in steps of 15◦ .

 The truth table for the phase pulsing sequence in half-stepping is

shown in Table
b) Multi-Stack Variable Reluctance Stepper Motors
 The multi-stack variable reluctance stepper motors are used to obtain
smaller step angles. The stator and rotor of multi-stack motor is divided
along its axial length into a number of sections or stacks.

In a m stack m/c the motor is

divided into m number of
magnetically isolated sections
called stacks.
 The m stack of stator has a
common frame while rotors are
mounted on same shaft.
Both stator and rotor have the
same number of poles / teeth.

Fig. 5 Cross section view of a typical three-stack

variable reluctance stepper motor
 For a multi stack motor with m number of phases, the stator
poles in all m stacks are aligned, but the rotor poles are
displaced by 1/m of the pole pitch.
 Figure 5 shows a three stack variable reluctance stepper motor.
The stators and rotors have the same number of poles and
therefore same pole pitch.
 All the stator pole windings in a given stack are excited
simultaneously and, therefore the stator winding of each stack
forms one phase.
 So the motor has the same number of phases as number of
stacks. If there are 12 stator and rotor poles in each stack. The
pole pitch for the 12 pole rotor is 30 ( 360/Nr).
 And the step angle or the rotor pole teeth are displaced by 10◦
from each other ( one third of pole pitch ie, 30/3=10◦)
Fig. 6 Teeth position for a 3-phase, three-stack, variable reluctance
stepper motor when phase a is energized
• Energizing phase (stack) A: when stack A of stator winding is
energized, the rotor teeth / poles will move to align themselves
with the stator teeth / poles in stack A as shown in Fig. 6.

• Energizing phase (stack) B: when stack B winding is then

energized while stack A winding is de-energized, the rotor teeth /
poles of stack B will move to align themselves with the stator teeth
/ poles in stack B. This will result in a clockwise rotation of the
rotor by 10° ( one third of pole pitch).

• Energizing phase (stack) C: when stack C winding is then

energized while stack B winding is de-energized, the rotor teeth /
poles of stack C will move to align themselves with the stator teeth
/ poles in stack C. This will result in another clockwise rotation of
the rotor by 10.