Electric motors are widely used across applications integral to modern life. Improvements in their efficiency and design integration are having huge impact.
By Pramit Nandy | Microchip Technology
Almost half of the electricity worldwide is consumed by applications incorporating electric motors and motor controls. So, electric-motor manufacturers are now mandated to adhere to energy-consumption and efficiency policies. What’s more, manufacturers are encouraged to use environmentally friendly materials and adopt sustainable manufacturing processes.
This shift in focus is spurring development of more energy-efficient electric motors, electronics, and algorithms that retain a compact design. These trends are indicative of the continuous progress in motor technology, with the aim of enhancing efficiency, performance, and sustainability across various applications.
Current technology trends
The future of motor control is poised for exciting advancements as technology continues to evolve. Motor control applications are becoming increasingly efficient, intelligent, precise and interconnected. Ongoing research and development, along with improvements in semiconductor technology, control algorithms and system integration are set to more enhance the complexity of motor control applications in both hardware and software aspects.
To address escalating hardware complexity, there’s a growing demand for integrated motor drivers that include a controller, three-phase MOSFET gate driver, and connectivity. Such integration supports high-power and precision designs in everything from industrial machinery to electric vehicles. With the inclusion of communication interfaces, these integrated motor drivers can seamlessly work in networked environments for remote control and monitoring.
Some integrated motor drivers present a holistic solution for motor control applications, offering superior performance, adaptability, and connectivity.
Motor control applications
The shift towards electric vehicles and the demand for energy-efficient systems are driving the adoption of electric motors across various industries. The motors are no longer limited to traditional applications. Some modern-day motor applications include industrial automation, automotive designs, aircraft, consumer electronics, renewable energy, and medical devices.
The integration of motor systems with internet of things (IoT) and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is paving the way for predictive maintenance, realtime surveillance, and the enhancement of motor performance. The growing emphasis on energy efficiency has spurred the creation of high-efficiency motors, featuring innovative designs and superior materials, which contribute to a reduction in energy usage and carbon emissions.
Compact and lightweight motors are becoming increasingly significant, especially in sectors like automotive, aerospace and industrial, as well as certain consumer applications where space and weight conservation are crucial. Progress in motor control algorithms, such as model-based predictive control and advanced sensorless control, are boosting motor performance, accuracy and agility.
The parts of an integrated motor driver
Integrated motor drivers combine all the control and analog interface functions needed for implementing complex motor control algorithms and typically include an advanced microcontroller (MCU) capable of running sensorless field oriented control (FOC), a three-phase gate driver, and sometimes a transceiver for communication.
Designs that benefit from integrated motor drivers
Integrated motor drivers serve a crucial role in various applications and industries. Overall, the demand for integrated motor drivers is driven by their ability to streamline design, reduce costs, enhance performance, conserve space, improve reliability and facilitate seamless integration with other systems. They offer an all-encompassing solution for efficient, compact and reliable motor control applications across various industries.
Integrated motor drivers are key to improving performance, efficiency and safety in automotive, industrial and electric vehicle (EV) applications. In the automotive sector, they enhance electric power steering (EPS), braking, HVAC and engine cooling systems. In industrial environments, they facilitate precise control in robotics, battery operated pumps, compressors and machine tools. In EVs, these microcontrollers optimize motor control, battery management, regenerative braking, thermal management, power efficiency and system integration and include diagnostic and safety features.
Here are some key reasons integrated motor drivers are necessary components for certain applications.
Simplified system design: Integrated motor drivers amalgamate motor control functionality, peripherals and interfaces into a single chip. This unification simplifies system design, minimizes component count and eradicates the requirement for external control circuitry, thereby saving engineers’ time and effort.
Cost effectiveness: The integration of multiple functions into a single microcontroller can decrease the overall system cost. An integrated solution is often less expensive than using separate components for motor control, leading to cost savings, particularly in high-volume production.
Space saving: Miniaturization is a significant trend in modern electronics. Integrated motor drivers provide a compact solution by combining multiple functions into a single chip. This helps in saving board space, making them ideal for applications where size constraints are crucial, such as in portable devices, automotive systems and robotics.
Reliability and safety: Integrated motor drivers often include built-in safety features such as fault detection, overcurrent protection and thermal management thereby enhancing system reliability and ensuring safe operation. Integration helps enhance response time to reach faults and the response can be more reliable due to internal integration as opposed to board level integration making systems safer.
Connectivity and integration: Many Integrated motor drivers come with built-in communication interfaces, allowing easy integration into larger systems or IoT applications. This enables seamless connectivity, remote monitoring and control capabilities, enhancing system flexibility and enabling data-driven insights.
The compact size, cost-effectiveness, advanced control algorithms and built-in safety features of integrated motor control microcontrollers make them essential in these sectors, driving advancements and contributing to improved performance, energy efficiency, reliability and overall system integration.
Digital signal controller (DSC) solutions
Certain integrated motor drivers powered by a digital signal controller (DSC) can streamline the implementation of efficient, realtime embedded motor control systems in applications where space is at a premium. Besides the DSC, the motor drivers also include a full-bridge MOSFET gate driver and an optional LIN or CAN FD transceiver. The construction simplifies design processes by reducing the component count, printed circuit board size, and overall system complexity.
Some such integrated motor drivers facilitate the efficient implementation of field-oriented control (FOC) and other advanced motor control algorithms.
Ecosystems for support
To accelerate the design process, some integrated motor driver suppliers offer comprehensive motor-control software-hardware ecosystems to help design engineers with design development.
In some cases, complimentary GUI-based software development tools for FOC measure critical motor parameters, automatically tune feedback control gains, and generate source code. The most advanced allow for zero-speed/maximum torque (ZS/MT) designs that maximizes motor torque output without the need for Hall or magnetic sensors.
Complimentary device blocks for MATLAB Simulink can be used to generate optimized code from models for DSCs and other MCUs. Expanding portfolios of DSC-based motor-control reference designs include ready-to-use solutions to help accelerate development time. For example, an automotive cooling fan might use an integrated motor driver with a LIN-bus transceiver.
For more information, visit this deep link on microchip.com.
About the author: Pramit Nandy is a product marketing manager at Microchip Technology Inc. focused on motor-control applications. Nandy has been with Microchip since 2021, and his previous experience includes a position with Onsemi. He holds a master’s degree in electrical engineering from Arizona State University and a Bachelor of Technology degree in instrumentation and control engineering from the College Of Engineering Pune (COEP) Technological University, India.
Nandy’s expertise lies in electrical systems and control engineering developed during his time as an analog system design engineer, system architect, application engineer, and control system engineer.
Filed Under: Motion Control Tips
