Datasheet

• Monitors the electronics, motors and the drivers’ power supply.
• Measure the motors’ current.
The Slaves PI Motor Controller will:
• Receive velocity references from the Master Motor Controller;
• Periodically read the encoder pulses;
• Send the read encoder pulses to the Master Motor Controller;
• Calculate the error between the reference velocity and the read velocity;
• Implement a PI controller to calculate the motor actuation;
• Implement an anti-windup error limit;
• Implement a reference velocity acceleration/deceleration profile;
• Remove the dead zone of the motor;
• Limit the maximum velocity of the motors.
The Master Motor Controller receives velocity commands from the computer and returns the encoder
pulses. The Controller connects to two PI microcontrollers that generate the control actuations to
follow velocity references. Each microcontroller connects to the motor using a 1000W H-bridge, and
provides the pulses measured by the encoder.
Each microcontroller is optically isolated from the motor driver using a high-speed optocoupler for the
control actuation signals and an optical amplifier for the current measurements. It is also optically
isolated from the computer communication port, again using a high-speed bidirectional optocoupler.
Several low-level fault diagnostics have been implemented to detect problems in the normal working
of each component or lack of communication.
Figure 7 shows the assembled Motor Controller Board. The board has several information LED lights
allowing a visual check of the state of each component previously described.
FROG – FP7 STREP nr. 288235
Deliverable: D1.4 – Platform User and Developer Manual 17
Figure 6: Motor Controller Board Architecture