Electric Motors for

Robotics
Munindar Kumar
Sunil Choudhary
Narendra K. Meena
Factors to choose right kind of
motor

 speed (RPM),
 torque,
 direction,
 Control and accuracy

Each motor type has several advantages as well as disadvantages

depending on a particular robots design.
 all motors are available in different sizes.
Direction (H-Bridge)
 Uni-directional, and Bi-directional
 An H bridge is an electronic circuit that
enables a voltage to be applied across a
load in either direction.
 to allow DC motors to run forwards and
backwards.
 In particular, a bipolar stepper motor is
almost invariably driven by a motor
controller containing two H bridges.
 Most DC-to-AC converters (power
inverters), most AC/AC converters, the
DC-to-DC push–pull converter, most
motor controllers, and many other kinds
of power electronics use H bridges.
Torque (Kgcm)
 stall and operating torque (max and minimum)
 More voltage, higher the torque.
 torque ratings can change depending on the voltage applied. So if you
need a little more torque to crush that cute kitten, going 20% above the
rated motor voltage value is fairly safe (for you, not the kitten). Just
remember that this is less efficient, and that you should heat sink your
motor.
 Most efficient at rated voltage
 Typical DC motors are rated from about 6V-12V. The larger ones are
often 24V or more.
 When buying a motor, there are two current ratings you should pay
attention to. The first is operating current (average current, typical
torque). The other is the stall current (max current, limiting torque).
Speed (PWM)
 Rotations per minute(rpm)
 try to slow down a motor by reducing its voltage with a variable resistor or
other ways will not work well, because it will not only reduce the motor's
speed, it will also reduce a motor's strength, while also consuming a lot of
electricity as large amounts of heat are generated by the resistor.
 A far better way is to use a PWM (Pulse-width modulation) device.
Microcontroller Motor Motor

Driver
Contains H-Bridge

How Motor is Controlled ?

Direction, Speed
DC Motors
(mostly used in robotics)
 Brushed DC Motors
 simply “DC motor”
 uses brushes to detect the change
in orientation so that it can flip the
current to continue the rotor’s
rotation.
 different sizes and at different
speeds.
 generally useless in robots as they
produce the slightest torque.
 have two wires; ground and power.
Geared DC Motor
 DC motors provide good speeds
without enough torque. To
Overcome this DC motors are
often coupled with gears which
provide greater torque, but
reducing speed.
 Normally all our robots would
require a geared DC motor to pull
the weight of our robot and any
additional components placed.
 the rotations per minute of Gear1
is lesser than the motor. Gear2
has even less number of
rotations per minute.
 each gear increases the torque of
overall setup.
Brushless DC Motor
(BLDC)
 In a BLDC, the rotor is made of
permanent magnet and the
stator is made of electromagnet.
 To detect a change in orientation,
brushless motors generally use
Hall Effect sensors to detect the
rotor’s magnetic field and
consecutively its orientation.
 Brushless motors are very useful
in robots as they are more
capable; they provide enough
torque, and greater speeds than
brushed motors.
 expensive due to their design
complexity and need a controller
to control their speed and
rotation.
Servo Motors (RC
servo motors)
 DC motors coupled with a feedback
control circuitry, a gear system to increase
torque and a position sensing device
(usually a potentiometer).
 When a signal (pulse) is sent, it moves the
motor shaft to a desired position using the
position feedback from a potentiometer.
 do not exhibit continuous rotation
(generally 200° back and forth) and
requires modifification for continuous
 Controlling a servo is done with
Pulse-width modulation. The length of the
pulse is relative to the position the servo
will turn to.
 wide range of applications in robotics, but
require a bit of shrewd programming to
make it work.
 have three wires; Ground, Power and
Control pulse (control signal).
 e.g. to move a sensor around, or to move
the legs of a robot.
Stepper Motor
 brushless motors which divides the
rotor’s rotation into discrete
number of steps
 breaks it into steps per revolution
and jumps each step for a certain
pulse.
 Unlike a servo motor, stepper
motor does not require any
complex position feedback
mechanism
 stepper motors are similar to
brushed DC motors with less
torque.
 Based on the arrangement of
windings inside a stepper motor, it
can be classified as Unipolar or
Bipolar step motor.
 Four wires
Linear DC Motors
 Not likely to be used in standard
mobile robots, a linear DC motor
is a normal DC motor with its
stator spread out.
AC Motors
 There are several different types of AC-motors, but their use is limited to high power
stationary industrial robots. They are harder to use than DC-motors.
 won't use AC motors unless your robot is stationary
 Modifying the AC frequency can alter speed and torque
 AC Servomotor, AC Stepper Motor
BIBLIOGRAPHY

 www.societyofrobots.com
 http://www.robotplatform.com/knowledge/actuators/dc_motors.html
 Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
EE201: ElectroMechanics
Seminar May 30,2015
Instructed By: Dr.Bhakti Joshi

Electric Motors for Robotics

Munindar Kumar B13216

Narendra K. Meena B13217
Sunil Choudhary B13233