7.6 Permanent magnet brushless DC motor: A stepper motor is a brush less motor.

Similarly
the motors such as SRM, Reluctance synchronous motor, squirrel cage induction motor and
PMBLDC motor are also brushless motors. Such motors are becoming popular because of
absence mechanical commutator and sparking. The commutation in some of these motors is
achieved using electronic circuits.


Fig 7.41 PMBLDC motor with bifilar winding

A permanent magnet brushless DC motor (PMBLDC or BLDC) had been shown in Fig
7.41. The torque is produced due to interaction of dissimilar poles. The rotor is normally a
smooth rotor having even number of alternate N-S pole. The commutations of the coils are done
using electronic circuit. The Hall Effect sensor and latch IC is normally used in small PMBLDC
motors. Here the inner stator is having four projecting poles carrying bifilar winding. The
winding is having three terminals mid terminals being at zero potential. By suitable connecting
the other two terminal +ve or ve polarity the poles formed on the DC stator is altered for
producing a forward torque. In case of failure of the Hall Effect probe and latch circuit the
operation of the machine is affected.

Low power PMBLDC motors are used in existing computer parts, like cooling fan drive
of SMPS & CPU, CDROM drive and HDD drives etc. The cooling fan drive of a PC is four-pole
PMBL motor having bifilar winding. The stationary primary is on the inner side and PM rotor is
on the out side. The windings are alternatively switched ON/OFF depending on the rotor
position. A Hall-effect sensor & latch IC senses the position of rotating magnets and the coils are
accordingly switched ON/OFF.
The drive motor in CDROM drive is a tiny 24-pole three-phase PMBL motor. The rotor
is outside consisting on 24 magnetic poles on the inner ferrite sleeve. These magnets are formed
with in-situ magnetization. The drive circuit consists of three tiny Hall-effect sensors and
switching devices. The electronic circuit essentially needs Hall -effect sensor for its operation.
The BLDC motors are also built with pancake armature as shown in Fig 7.42. This has 6
sector shape magnets and six sector shape flat coils with magnetic core. The position of
permanent magnet rotor is sensed using Hall-effect devices. The switching of coils is
synchronized with the rotation of rotor.



(a) (b)
Fig 7.41 Sector magnet for 6-pole DC machine with pancake armature


Fig 7.43 PMBLDC motor with three phase winding
In three phase PMBLDC motor there are having three distinct winding groups with are
regularly distributed on the slots as shown in Fig 7.43. These windings are alternatively switched
ON /OFF with forward current and reverse currents depending on the proximity of North or
South pole. A PMBLDC motor may have more than three phases. The power and mechanical
torque produced by multiphase motors is expected to be high. These motors have replaced
conventional DC motors at many places. The motors are also fault tolerant- in absence of one
phase the motor can run. It exhibits the torque speed characteristics similar to that of DC shunt
motor as shown in Fig 7.44.





Fig 7.44 Torque speed characteristics of
BLDC motor
Fig 7.45 Schematic for hall effect probe
and latch H1-IC with bifilar winding

The schematic for bipolar Hall-effect probe & latch- IC is given in Fig 7.45. The switch
1 is ON, when North pole is in proximity and is OFF when the magnetic polarity reverses.
Similarly when South pole is in proximity the switch 2 is ON and is OFF when the magnetic
polarity reverses.
The latch switch will remain ON, even when magnetic pole is removed and will remain
ON until a reverse magnetic polarity is applied. In smaller capacity machine of few milli-Watts,
the winding is directly connected to the Hall-effect probe & latch IC. However in large capacity
PMBLDC motor, the output of Hall-effect probe & latch is used to drive a power conditioning
circuit, which switches ON/OFF the respective winding.
The applications are battery operated cycles, e-bikes, computer peripherals, CD/DVD
players etc.

7.7.3 Resolvers: In state of art modern electrical machine technology, more emphasis
is given on the use of brushless motors such as SRM, PMBLDC motor, PMSM etc. The
coil switching of these electrical motors are synchronized with the rotor position. The
sensing of shaft positioning is an integral part for the operation of these motors. The
position of rotating shaft can be sensed using
(a) Permanent magnet brushless motor
(b) Switched Reluctance motor
(c) Permanent magnet synchronous motor

Some of these motors are already explained in this chapter. The position of rotating
shaft can be sensed using
(a) Optical encoder
(b) Hall effect sensor
(c) Resolver



A typical optical encoder given signal from 45 to 60 of shaft rotation is shown in Figure
7. The basic principle of such optical encoding technique is to generate a signal
corresponding to the rotor position using a LED and an optical sensor. There can be
several transparent openings on the disk. Several LEDs and optical sensors can be
mounted at different locations for obtaining respective position signals.


Figure 7. Principle of optical shaft encoding and corresponding signal

In case of Hall sensor, the permanent magnets (PM) are mounted on the rotating shaft,
the stationary Hall sensors are positioned at different locations. These Hall sensors are
either unipolar or bipolar or Hall effect sensor with latch. In case of bipolar Hall effect
sensor and latch alternate PM are provided on the shaft, the output signal (due to
presence of a magnetic polarity) is maintained (say ) positive until reverse polarity PM is
sensed. When reverse polarity magnet is in proximity, the polarity of signal reverses.

The Hall effect IC requires a low voltage DC supply for biasing, the output signal
corresponding to the instantaneous rotor position are used for switching circuits. A
typical Hall effect position sensing is shown in Figure 7. In actual practice multiple
magnets and multiple Hall effect sensors are attached.


Figure 7. A typical Hall effect position sensing scheme


A resolver is an analogue rotary positioning electromagnetic device used for shaft position
sensing and control. A resolver gives a better performance as compared to optical and magnetic
shaft encoders even at zero speed. It had been used for many years in military applications. In
factory automation, a resolver transfers data to a Programmable Logic Controller and is then
interpreted to perform various functions in an industrial process. Resolvers are finding their
applications in rotor position sensing for synchronizing the switching of different coils in modern
motors.

A resolver is often mixed with the shaft encoding. Normally, it gives a definite number of pulses
at a rotational speed when rotated for 360 . The construction of a resolver is similar to that of
synchros. A typical resolver is shown in Figure. 7. Four pole (say) stator has two distinct set of
windings normally referred as cos and sin windings. The rotor is a salient pole rotor attached to
the running shaft. These resolvers are built with or without slip rings. Axial flux-pancake type
resolver is also used. The rotor winding through two slip rings is excited by a 400 Hz source. In
case of non contact resolver, the high frequency power to rotor winding is provided using rotary
transformer. When the rotor moves the stator windings induced voltages are modulated having
large number of high frequency pulses.

Figure 7. Typical constructional details of a resolver
Note : Only part stator has been shown for clarity

A resolver has the capability of providing signal corresponding to very fine shaft position
sensing. As mentioned above, the output signals are two phase ( cos/sin) outputs at the carrier
frequency modulated sinusoidally by the rotation of the rotor. The demodulated signal is
transformed into a train of pulses using an integrated circuit Resolver to digital converter. It
provides the absolute position of the shaft and direction of rotation at any position and at any
speed. The information such as rotational speed RPM can also be extracted from it. Compared to
optical and Hall Effect shaft encoding, a resolver is expensive. However, because of its
ruggedness it can be used in harsh environmental conditions and even at high speed. The resolver
rotor is mounted on the non drive shaft end of BLDC motor without any coupling.



(a) Low speed

(b) High speed
Figure 7. Typical modulated signals in cos winding of resolver at (a) low speed and (b) high
speed.


The rotor is energized by a high frequency source say (400 Hz). The high frequency low voltage
supply can be obtained using Wein bridge oscillator using power operational amplifiers. The
modulated voltages are induced on different windings depending on the instantaneous position of
rotor.