Real Time Stepper Motor Control for Satellite Tracking System
Authors: Aravind Vaithilingam, Rajparthiban, Mathan
Abstract:
This project presents real time stepper motor controller and demonstrates how personal computer control the stepper motor. Stepper motor has already become an important drive configuration for many applications across a wide range of speeds and positions. The comfort of control and excellent performance of the stepper motor will ensure that the number of applications using them will continue grow for the foreseeable future.
Microcontroller is interfaced to a computer through RS 232 serial port to send the data to the computer for position and speed control of stepper motor. Stepper motor is a type of electric motor which is used when something has to be positioned very precisely or rotated by an exact position. This project is a combination of both hardware and software design. The microcontroller chosen for this project is PIC16F876A because it has a lot of features available in microcontroller. Interfacing between computer and external control device, RS 232 communication protocol is used with Maxim MAX 232 level translator chip to prevent the damaging the PC’s RS 232 interfacing circuitry components and the PIC micro MCU chip.
It is a closed-loop real time control system, where optical encoder (built in this project) is coupled to the motor shaft to provide the feedback position signal to controller. In this control system, the control software is created by Visual Basic 6.0 to access serial communication function. Visual Basic 6.0 component is used to write data and read data and then configure the serial port. A program in Visual Basic 6.0 is developed to provide a graphic user interface (GUI) for the user to enter desired speed and position at computer. Besides, it also shows currently motor position and speed to let the user monitor the performance of the system easily. Based on the result, the reading of optical encoder built is quite reliable.
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