Control of Position/Velocity in a Mobile Robot Using DC Brushless Motors

Leonardo Romero and Antonio Concha

Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolas de Hidalgo
Morelia Michoacan 58000, Mexico
lromero@umich.mx, aconcha@faraday.fie.umich.mx

Abstract errors. Also brush DC motors generates electrical noise and

brushes also wear out in a short time. A good reference to
This paper describes the construction of a differential hardware design for brush motors in mobile robotics is also
mobile robot using a brushless DC motor coupled to each found in [1].
wheel. Considering that commercial controllers of brush- Our new mobile robot inherits its reliability from brush-
less motors are expensive and they control only velocity, less DC motors and gearboxes made with industrial gears.
not position; we design and built 3-Phase Bridges, with N- The robot follows a differential scheme [2] with two wheels
Mosfets, within a electronic circuitry to drive brushless mo- on a common axis, each wheel driven independently by a
tors. A PWM control scheme and the outputs of the optical brushless motor, and two caster wheels to ensure balance.
encoder and Hall sensor of the motor are used to implement Figure 1 shows a view of the motor with its gearbox. Brush-
a closed–loop velocity and position control. The real time less motors are more reliable and less noisy than brush mo-
control of the two traction wheels runs on a 68HCS12 mi- tors and have a longer life–time. However, because brush-
crocontroller and the mobile robot accepts commands using less DC motors has no brushes, they need an external elec-
an standard RS232 serial connection. The hardware design tronic driver. Commercial driver cards or chips are very
and software of this robot is available online. expensive, and they usually cost more than the brushless
motors. In our case, we use the 4441S010 brushless mo-
tor from Pittman, which costs 208 USD. As a reference,
1. Introduction the commercial velocity controller for a single motor, using
Hall sensors or quadrature encoder, costs about 358 USD 1 .
Nowadays mobile robots are in research laboratories as
well as in industry, hospitals, museums, and an important
issue is to have a powerful and reliable mobile robot.
Unfortunately most Mobile Robotic research in Mex-
ico is done using imported mobile robots. However, these
robots have several disadvantages: 1) they are expensive, 2)
maintenance is slow and expensive, and 3) normally they
are closed systems, without flexibility to add new capabili-
ties.
To overcome this disadvantages, we develop an open,
flexible, reliable, powerful and expandable differential mo-
bile robot, designed and built locally. It is based on the
Linux operating system and commercial hardware for sen-
sors and actuators. All the software required by the robot
was already part of Linux, or it was developed using tools Figure 1. The brushless motor with its gear-
under the GNU General Public License. In other words, box
there is no proprietary code.
In a previous version of the robot [5] we use Pittman
brush DC gearmotors, which include quadrature encoders This paper presents details of the hardware and software
and a gear–box. Unfortunately the gears (of the gear–box)
wear out very soon and they introduce significant position 1 http://www.clickautomation.com
of the brushless motor controller. The rest of this paper is
organized as follows. Section 2 presents how brushless DC
motors work. Section 3 presents the hardware design of the
3-Phase Bridge required, including also the interface with
the microcontroller. Experimental results using the new mo-
bile robot is shown in Section 4. Finally, some conclusions
are given in Section 5.
2. Brushless DC Motors
Figure 2 helps to understand the operation of a brushless
DC motor. The motor has 3 power inputs, labeled A, B
and C. The 3-Phase Bridge has 6 switches, AL, BL, and
CL in the low side and AH, BH and CH in the high side.
The brushless motor also have a magnetic Hall sensor with
3 digital outputs, that encode the position of the shaft of the
motor. The driver of the motor should see the output of the
Hall sensor and close only one switch of the low side of the
3-Phase bridge and only one switch of the high side. Once
the motor rotates, the Hall sensor reports new outputs and
the driver should open the switches and then close another
pair of switches.
3−Phase Bridge
AH BH CH
+
A B C controller. We also discuss the over voltage snubber, a very
−
AL BL
CL
Over Voltage Snubber
A B
C Brushless DC Motor
Figure 2. Operation of a brushless motor.
Whether using solid state switches or relays, problems
arise when switching inductive load such as motors. We
know that the voltage, v, induced across an inductor is pro-
portional to the rate of change of the current, i, through it,
and the inductance, L: v = L dt di
. If the current through
an inductor has reached a steady state, the voltage across
it is 0V. To prevent a high voltage spike (that can destroy
the switch) when the current is upset by the opening of
the switch, usually fly back diodes in the reverse direction
across the switches are used to create a return path for the
current. For instance, if AH and AL are closed, current
flows through the motor from A to B. When both switches
are opened, the current flows through the diodes of AL, BH
and the battery. In this way the power will fly back to the
battery [2] and to the over voltage snubber.
An advantage of the brushless DC motor over the brush
DC motor is its ability to hold its position. It is enough
to keep closed the same pair of switches. In other words,
brushless DC motors are like step motors (12 steps per rev-
olution in our case).
To control the velocity (or torque) of the motor a very
common approach is to use the Pulse Width Modulation
(PWM) scheme [2]. In this scheme, the pair of switches
are opened and closed in a periodic sequence (v.gr. with
a frequency of 22KHz in our case). If switches are open
almost all time, the velocity (or torque) is slow; but when
switches remain closed more time, the velocity (or torque)
increases. From now on, a high PWM means a PWM signal
that cause a high velocity (or torque).
Now we are ready to describe our brushless motor con-
troller.
3. Hardware
The mobile robot have two motors, two 3-phase bridges
and one microcontroller. Now we discuss the implementa-
tion of the 3-phase bridge and its interface with the micro-
important part of the driver to reduce the temperature of the
Power Mosfets and provide a safe operation when the motor
rotates and also when the motor holds its position.
3.1. 3-Phase Bridge
Because brushless motor have a low resistance (3Ω in
our case) and we use 24V (two lead–acid batteries 12V,
7A-H), we have currents of several amperes and hence we
need robust switches. Due its low resistance and low volt-
age drop, power Mosfets were chosen in the design of the
3-phase bridge. Also they have the additional advantage of
have its own fly back diode.
We tested three versions. The first two versions, shown
in Figure 3 and 4 have P-Mosfets in the high side and N-
Mosfets in the low side. Both Figures only show the circuit
for the A phase, because the other two phases are identi-
cal. Connections AH and AL receive the PWM scheme,
are TTL compatible and they define the state of switches.
The main drawback of version 1 is its long time to turn on
(or close) or to turn off (or open) the Mosfet, since there is
a high resistance in the circuit that feeds the Mosfet gate.
Although it works fine when the motor is moving, Mosfets
are too hot when the motor does not move and the PWM is
 +24V Motors

+24V Motors

30K
Zener 12V
S STP80PF55
G C
8.2K
B BC338

2K
D
P channel S STP80PF55
E
C MOSFET C G
AH 10K
B 5.6
B
P channel
BC338 D
BC327
E MOSFET
Out 330 E

+24V Motors Brushless

Motor 3.3K C
Phase A B
10K

E
C 3.3K
BC338
B BC338 D MTP75N05 +12V
Out
C C

AL
2K Brushless
B E G AH B
Motor
10K S
10K
Zener 12V

E N channel Phase A
30K

E
BC338 BC338
MOSFET

+12V

C
8.2K
Figure 3. Version 1. B BC338 D MTP75N05

E G
C
5.6 S
B N channel
BC327 MOSFET
3.3K E
330

high. Version 2 uses Totem Pole outputs and hence have a C

faster switching operation. Now only the P-Mosfets get too C

B

hot when the motor does not move and the PWM is high. AL B E
BC338
The problem is a drop voltage in the gate of the P-Mosfet 10K
E
due to the drop voltage in the power source when the Mosfet BC338
is turned on. In this circuit there is a different 12V reference
voltage for the N-Mosfet (actually another 12V battery that
also feeds the microcontroller).

The final version of the 3-Phase bridge, including the
over voltage snubber, is shown in Figure 5. It uses six N-
Mosfets, the IR2130 chip (a 3-Phase Bridge Driver) and
the 74367 chip (3-State Buffer). A 15V regulated power
source, provides the reference gate voltage for the IR2130.
To implement the PWM scheme in all six Mosfets a single
PWM signal, from the microcontroller, is connected to the
enable pin (EN ) of the 3-State Buffer. When the PWM sig-
nal is high, all Mosfets are turned off (using resistors con-
nected to 5V ). But when the PWM signal is low, the state of
AL, AH, · · · CH signals (from the microcontroller) control
the state of Mosfets.
The final version also has the advantage of using only N–
Mosfets which are cheaper and more accessible than similar
P-Mosfets. Besides that, it has a 15V input to provide the
required voltage of the N-Mosfets. In the implementation
the 15V input is independent of the power source of motors,
and hence it has no the drawback of version 2.
Figure 4. Version 2.
3.2. Snubber Circuit
An over voltage snubber circuit (located at the right side
of Figure 2) is incorporated in the power circuit to reduce
the stress in the Power Mosftes during the switching and
to assure a regime of safe work [4, 6]. Because there is a
small bit of inductance in the wiring between the batteries
and the driver, when the current suddenly stop, that induc-
tance presents a higher voltage until somehow the current
does manage to flow (through the Power Mosfets in our
case when its maximum drain to source voltage is exceeded)
[3]. Now with an RCD snubber, the capacitor absorbs that
pulse of current through the diode. Once the current has de-
creased to zero the over voltage on the capacitor decreases
to source voltage (24V) through the resistor.
 v
+24V Motors

10000uF
Brushless
MTP75N06

MTP75N06
Phase A
N channel

N channel
MOSFET

MOSFET
Motor
Out
Power In

D
S

S
t
G

G
+
-

Rgate

Rgate
10

10
+24V

Figure 6. Aceleration scheme.

MTP75N06

MTP75N06
Brushless
N channel

N channel
Phase B
MOSFET

MOSFET
To 12V Regulator

Motor
+24V Motors

Out
D

D
S

S
+

G
-

Rgate

Rgate
Out Brushless
10

10
8 input captures, as well as 4 pulse accumulators. We use
50uF

Phase C

+24V
Motor
MTP75N06

MTP75N06
N channel

N channel
MOSFET

MOSFET
two PWM signals, one per motor. We also use two pulse ac-
1
Regulator
IN

cumulators, one per motor, to count pulses from the optical

GND
7815 2

D
S

S
3 OUT

G
encoder of the motor. The velocity of the motor is computed
Rgate

Rgate
10
10
100uF

from the number of pulses per millisecond.

Vcc

6.8uF

6.8uF
6.8uF

The implementation of the control of both wheels, of the

Cb

Cb

Cb
Db

Db

Db
Ultrafast Diodes

mobile robot, follows the control scheme presented in [2].

VB1 28
HO1 27
VS1 26
25

VB2 24
HO2 23
VS2 22
21

VB3 20
HO3 19
VS3 18
17

LO1 16
LO2 15
MUR140

MUR140

MUR140

We only add an acceleration scheme like the one shown in

3-Phase Bridge Drive
Figure 6, to achieve a smooth movement. At the beginning,
IR2130

the robot moves slowly and the velocity is growing. Near

8 FAULT
9 ITRIP
2 HIN1
3 HIN2
4 HIN3
5 LIN1
6 LIN2
7 LIN3

10 CA0

14 LO3
11 CA-

13 Vs0
1 Vcc

12 Vss
OUT 3

the end of the movement, the velocity gradually decreases.

Low Dropout Regulator LM2940

GND
2

The number of steps (and hence the position of the wheel)

IN

10K
1

+5V

+5V 10K 10K

is easily computed from the signals of the Hall sensor.
IN 5V Regulated

10K 10K
To hold the position of the robot a simple proportional
1
ms from the optical
+
-

10K 10K
control, using the count of pulses per 16
Y6 13
Y5 11

Y4 9
Y3 7
Y2 5
Y1 3

encoders, computes the right PWM signal sent to motors.

3-STATE BUFFER
74367
15 G2

1 G1
14 A6
12 A5

10 A4
6 A3
4 A2
2 A1

4. Experimental results
C
A
B

IN 3-Phase Brushless motor

The program for the microcontroller was developed in

FLT
CH
EN

BH
AH
CL
BL
AL

the C language using a public domain compiler 3 for the

IN from microcontroller
C
A
B

HCS12 microcontroller, available in Linux. More informa-

tion about the new robot and older versions are available
Figure 5. Final version. online (http://faraday.fie.umich.mx/˜lromero).
We use two different power supplies. The first one, with
two 12V batteries, to feed motors. The other one, with two
12V batteries provides the input to the 15V regulator of the
The snubber is implemented by a 4.7Ω, 15W resistor, a 3-Phase bridge and also feeds a 5V regulator (which powers
high speed Schottky diode (STPS745) and a 100µF, 150V the microcontroller, Hall sensors and optical encoders).
electrolitic capacitor. The mobile robot moves smoothly as expected but the
interesting case is when the robot require a force to hold its
3.3. Microcontroller position. Tables 1 and 2 shows the temperature (in centi-
grade degrees) without and with the snubber, respectively,
We use the Adapt9S12DP256 card 2 , a compact, modular of the hottest Mosfet (without any heat dissipator) and the
implementation of the Freescale 9S12DP256C microcon- motor, for different PWM values. Higher PWM values
troller chip. It can run up to 24Mhz and two 50-pin connec- means higher torque of motors and higher temperatures.
tors bring out all I/O pins of the microcontroler. It includes The comparison of both tables shows that the snubber
all necessary support circuitry for the microcontroller, as avoids high temperatures in the Mosfets and it becomes an
well as a 5-Volt regulator and two RS232 transceiver on- essential part of the driver. This behavior is explained when
board. we see Figures 7 and 8, which show the input voltage of
This microcontroller can drive up to 8 PWM signals and the driver without and with the snubber, respectively (closer
2 http://www.technologicalarts.ca 3 http://www.gnu.org/software/m68hc11/m68hc11 gcc.html
 Figure 7. Case without snubber.
Figure 8. Case with snubber.
views are shown in Figure 9 and 10). We can see how the
transient part is smaller when the driver includes the snub-
ber.
Figure 11 shows the case of a snubber using only the
capacitor, without the diode and the resistor, as suggested
in many literature about 3–Phase bridges. In this case, the
capacitor is not a solution because there is a resonance, tran-
sient are longer than before and Mosfets get too hot in a few
seconds.
To prevent high temperatures of motors, also PWM val-
ues are limited to 180.
Finally, because we use a PWM frequency of 22Khz
there is no audible noise generated from motors.
A view of the 3-Phase bridge board to drive two motors
is shown in Figure 12 (the snubber is not shown) and a top
view of the mobile robot is shown in Figure 13.
Figure 9. Case without snubber. A closer
view.
Figure 10. Case with snubber. A closer view.
5. Conclusions
We have presented a design of a mobile robot using brus-
less DC motors. They add reliability, and the ability to
(easily) hold the position of the robot as well as to count
the number of steps of the motor. They merge the high
torque and velocity of brush motors and the ability to move
in steps, like step motors.
Unlike commercial drives which only have velocity con-
trol, our design is well suited to velocity and position con-
trol. An additional advantage of our controller is that it is
cheaper than the commercial one (800 USD vs 180 USD).
References
[1] C. H. Jensen. A generic motor driver design for mobile
robotic platforms. Master’s thesis, Physics and Electronic En-
gineering at the University of Waikato, 2004.
 Table 1. Temperature of components when
the motor does not move. Case without
snubber
PWM Mosfets Motor
120 31◦ 27◦
150 39◦ 30◦
180 90◦ 46◦
210 > 120◦ 67◦

Table 2. Temperature of components when

the motor does not move. Case with snub-
ber
PWM Mosfets Motor
120 30◦ 27◦
150 38◦ 30◦
180 51◦ 46◦
210 52◦ 67◦

[2] J. L. Jones, A. M. Flynn, and B. Seiger. Mobile Robots: In-

spiration to Implementation. A. K. Peters, 1998.
[3] C. McManis. Voltage spikes in fet based h-bridges.
http://www.mcmanis.com/chuck/robotics/projects/esc2/
hbridge spiking.html, 2006.
[4] N. Mohan, T. M. Underland, and W. P. Robbins. Power Elec-
tronics: converters, applications, and design. John Wiley and
Sons, 2nd edition, 1995.
[5] L. Romero and J. Arellano. Building an open platform for
mobile robotics. In Proceedings of the 4th International Sym-
posium on Robotics and Automation (ISRA), pages 600–605,
2004.
[6] R. Severns. Design of snubbers for power circuits.
Figure 12. The 3-Phase bridge board
http://www.cde.com/tech/design.pdf, 2006.

Figure 11. Case without diode and resistor. Figure 13. The mobile robot