Journal of Engineering Research and Studies

E-ISSN0976-7916
Research Article

MICROCONTROLLER BASED CONTROL OF THREE

PHASE BLDC MOTOR
P. Devendra1*, 2Madhavi TVVS*, 3K Alice Mary, 4Ch. Saibabu
Address for Correspondence
Associate Professor, EEE dept, GMR Institute of Technology, Rajam, Andhrapradesh, India
2
PG Student, EEE dept, GMR Institute of Technology, Rajam, Andhrapradesh, India
3
Professor & Head, Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department, Vignans Institute of Information
Technology, Vishakhapatnam, India
4
Professor, Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University,
Kakinada, India
1

ABSTRACT
This paper introduces a novel method which is intended to assist in the design and control of cost effective, efficient
Brushless Direct Current (BLDC) motors with additional features like auto restart and auto power down while maintaining
constant speed. Speed Control of BLDC motor using 8051 micro controller requires more hardware, and with the
availability of PIC microcontrollers with versatile features motivated to develop a cost effective and reliable control with
variable speed range. In the present paper, an algorithm which uses the Hall sensor signals acquired from the motor is
developed and the program has been written using MPLABIDE v 7.52. This program generates the firing pulses required to
drive the MOSFETs of three phase fully controlled bridge converter driven by IR2101 FET drivers. Later the program has
been dumped on the PIC16F series device and tested on the 24V, 80 W, 1500 rpm BLDC motor which can make the motor
run at constant speed ranging from 6 to 1500 rpm. The proposed hardware and the program are found to be efficient and the
results are promising.
KEYWORDS Brushless Direct Current motor, PIC16Fseries, MPLABIDE, Hall sensor, IR2101 FET driver.

I. INTRODUCTION
PERMANENT magnet brushless dc (BLDC) motors
have used wide application due to their power
density and ease of control. Moreover, the machines
have high efficiency over a wide speed range. The
highly efficient conventional DC motors are suitable
for various applications because of their
characteristics.
They require commutator and
brushes, for conversion of dc to ac which are subject
to wear and require maintenance. This only
drawback of conventional DC motors makes us to
shift to BLDC motors which are electronically
commutated by using solid state .Recent legislation
imposing efficiency standards in appliances, has
forced appliance manufacturers to migrate to BLDC
motors in their applications. In view of these
enormous
applications,
researchers
started
developing methods for efficient use of these motors
in diversified fields. To mention a few: Jianwen
Shao Nolan et.al [1] has developed a novel
microcontroller-based Sensorless brushless DC
(BLDC) motor drive for automotive fuel pumps in
2003. Also, they have developed an Improved
Microcontroller-Based Sensorless Brushless DC
(BLDC) Motor Drive for Automotive Applications,
in 2006[2]. Nikolay Samoylenko [3] studied the
Dynamic performance of Brushless DC motors with
unbalanced Hall sensors.
To the extent the authors have surveyed not much
work has been reported on micro controller driven
sensor based BLDC motors. Hence in this paper, an
algorithm for sensor based micro controller driven
BLDC motors with additional features like auto
restart and auto power down is presented and
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effectiveness of the work is shown through

hardware realization.
II. REVIEW OF BLDC MOTOR CONTROL
SCHEMES

The control schemes of BLDC motor are mainly

classified in following two ways
Sensor based control
Sensor less control
In sensor based control, a Hall sensor is used which
detects the position of the rotor magnet and gives a
signal which is used to give appropriate excitation to
the stator winding. Hall sensor works on Hall effect
which states that when a current carrying conductor
is placed in magnetic field, it exerts a transverse
force on the conductor. The sensor based control
scheme is shown in Fig.2.

Fig.2 Sensor based control

Micro controller based control using Hall sensors
gives effective control on BLDC motors.
The sensor less drive principle is based on the
detection of the rotor position using various
techniques one of which is the EMF detection.
There are various methods for position and velocity
estimation based on the induced Back EMF

Journal of Engineering Research and Studies

detection. Various micro controllers and DSP
controllers are available for sensor less control.
III. MICROCONTROLLER
BASED
CONTROL SCHEME
The proposed control for BLDC motor control using
PIC microcontrollers of MICROCHIP with device
name PIC16F690 is shown in the figure (3).

Fig.3 Micro Controller based Control

The base drive to the MOSFETS in the Inverter
circuit is given by the PIC16F690 micro-controller.
The Hall signals from the motor are fed as inputs to
the PIC16Fseries device and based on the Hall
position and the direction of rotation of the motor
specified by the manufacturer the corresponding
gate drive is made active by the microcontroller and
fed to the stator of the BLDC motor.
The commutation sequence for rotating the motor in
clock wise direction when viewed from the non
driving end is given in the Table (1).
Table (1): Sequence for rotating motor in
clockwise direction

Based on the Hall sensor input to the

microcontroller, the corresponding transistors are
made active and current flows through two windings
and the other winding is inactive and hence
commutation is done electronically with the use of a
microcontroller.
The commutation sequence for rotating the motor in
counter clock wise direction when viewed from the
non driving end is given in the Table (2).

Thus by properly exciting the corresponding

winding based on the hall signal, the motor is
commutated and is made to run at the desired speed.
Initially irrespective of the rotor position, the
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E-ISSN0976-7916

windings are excited in the given sequence and once

the motor starts rotating, rotor position is sensed by
the Hall sensor and then the motor is excited based
on the Hall signal and according to the direction of
rotation of the motor.
The speed can be controlled in a closed loop by
measuring the actual speed of the motor. If the
speed is greater than the desired rated speed, then all
the transistors are turned off for a short duration and
then again excited based on the Hall position and
accordingly speed can be adjusted to get constant
speed. The ADC of the microcontroller is used to
convert the analog signal corresponding to the speed
of the motor to a digital value and comparison is
done with the calculated digital value which is
proportional to the rated speed
A. PIC16Fseries Micro controller
PIC16Fseires microcontroller which is used for this
project is a 40-pin device, 8 bit CMOS
Microcontroller which belongs to the MICROCHIP
family of microcontrollers. It has 10-bit Analog to
Digital converter (ADC) and we have used only 8
bits for our control so that the speed can be
controlled in 255 steps ranging from 6 to 1500 rpm.
The various features of this device make this device
to be selected for the proposed control. Timer1 is
operated in external oscillator mode with an external
crystal oscillator of 20 MHz connected to the micro
controller device. An external Potentiometer is
connected to the ADC pin which provides the
required speed range.
B. Algorithm for Assembly language code written
using MPLAB IDE v7.52tool
MPLAB IDE v7.52tool of MICROCHIP has been
used to write the code in assembly language using
PIC16F690 data sheets provided by MICROCHIP.
The algorithm to run and maintain constant speed of
a BLDC motor is
Set PORTE as digital hall input.
Set PORTC as Outputs to transistors.
Generate interrupt on timer1 over flow and
also on completion of ADC conversion by
setting the appropriate registers.
Enable Global interrupt.
Give excitation to the motor windings
irrespective of the Hall signal according to
the direction of rotation of the motor (clock
wise or counter clock wise).
Start TIMER1 which is operated with
external crystal oscillator at 20 MHz
frequency
Generate LOOK-UP Table for clock wise
rotation of the motor irrespective of the
Hall signal.
At the timer overflow interrupt service
routing (ISR), generate LOOK-UP Table

Journal of Engineering Research and Studies

for clock wise rotation of the motor based
on Hall signal.
Set the motor speed using external
potentiometer connected to the ADC pin.
Enable ADC to convert the analog voltage
into digital.
Compare this digital value with the counter
value equivalent to the motor speed (rated).
If motor speed is higher than the rated
speed then turn off all the transistors for
short duration in ADC conversion complete
ISR and return back from the ISR.
Then repeat the excitation process based on
Hall signal.
This program drives the BLDC motor at
constant speed and by varying the external
potentiometer value we can change the
motor speed and according make the motor
run at that constant speed.
This algorithm is used to write a program in
MPLAB IDE and is dumped on to the PIC16F690
device and tested on the 24 V, 80 W, and 1500 rpm
BLDC motor shown in the figure (4).

b)

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FET driver circuit:

Fig (6) FET driver circuit

The complete hardware set up for the motor control
is shown in Fig (7).

Fig (7) The complete Hardware set up

V RESULTS & DISCUSSIONS
The pulses generated from the microcontroller
control circuit are

Fig (4) 24 V, 80 W, 1500 rpm BLDC motor

IV. PROPOSED HARDWARE FOR BLDC
MOTOR
Proposed hardware consisting of mainly following
basic circuits
a)
Microcontroller circuit
Fig.7 Pulses to drive the MOSFETs
The pulses shown in the figure (7) are fed to the
24V, 80 W, 1500 rpm BLDC motor and the motor
voltage equivalent to 1500 rpm speed is shown in
figure (8).

Fig (5) Microcontroller circuit

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Fig.8 BLDC motor voltage waveform equivalent

to 1500 rpm speed

Journal of Engineering Research and Studies

V. CONCLUSION
The proposed algorithm has been programmed in
MPLABIDE v 7.52. and it generates the firing
pulses required to drive the MOSFETs of three
phase fully controlled bridge converter. The
program has been dumped on to the PIC16Fseries
device and fed to the MOSFETs of three phase fully
controlled bridge converter driven by IR2101 driver
circuit. The output from the converter is fed to the
three phase stator winding of 24V, 80 W, 1500 rpm
BLDC motor and the motor is found to run at
constant speed which is set by the external
potentiometer connected to the microcontroller
circuit. The program is found to be efficient and the
results with the designed hardware are promising.
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