Micromouse Lecture #2 Power Motors Encoders
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Transcript Micromouse Lecture #2 Power Motors Encoders
Micromouse Meeting #3
Lecture #2
Power
Motors
Encoders
Microcontroller – pick one yet?
Previous Stuff
Meet your team
Some teams were changed
High Level
Diagram
Everything needs power
Batteries
Power
Supply a constant voltage
Supply as much current as needed
(Ideally)
=
(almost)
Different components require different supply voltages
Power
Regulation
MCU: ~5V
Gyro: 5V or 3.3V
Supply too little, components don’t work properly
Supply too much, components tend to light on fire
Common voltage divider circuit
Power
Regulation
Does not work for Micromouse!
Battery voltage decreases as it discharges
If input voltage decreases, output voltage also decreases
Solution:
Voltage Regulator
Power
Regulation
These will output a constant voltage even if the
input voltage changes
Inside is a complicated mess of transistors and other
components
Check datasheet for input voltage range
Convert electrical energy to mechanical energy
Motors
Two types:
Brushed
Brushless
Brushed motors take a DC signal
So they are also known as DC motors
Motors:
Brushed
Power an inductor to rotate a magnet
Increase the voltage and/or current -> Increase the rotation speed
Reverse the polarity of the input voltage -> Reverse the rotation
Most digital microcontrollers do not have an analog signal output
MCU’s output digital signals – either high or low
How do we control brushed motors?
“Fake” analog voltage signal
Square wave with a certain frequency
This can be used to control the speed of a motor
Pulse Width
Modulation
(PWM)
• Speed is controlled by rapidly turning the
motor on and off
• Turn the motor on for a greater fraction of
the time to make it rotate faster
• The percent of time the PWM signal is on
is the duty cycle
• 0% duty cycle is same as off all the time;
100% duty is same as on all the time
Microcontrollers have libraries/functions that
make generating PWM signals really easy
PWM signals can control the speed of the motors easily – cool
Problem: Connect a pin on a MCU to a motor and output a PWM
Motors: Signal
Power and
turning
The motor barely moves
MCUs cannot provide enough current to turn motors at fast
enough speeds
Another problem: Microcontrollers cannot invert the PWM
signal to rotate the motor in the other direction
Solution: Motor Driver
Use the PWM signal to control a transistor
Motors: Driver
The transistor acts as a two-state switch
that can handle lots of current
The transistor switches on and off
according to the PWM
The motor can be directly powered by the
battery, but now its speed can be
controlled too
Motors:
Rotation
Control
Motor driver circuit can pour all the current the battery can supply
to the motor – nice
Problem: How can the motor change direction?
Previous circuit allows current to flow in only one direction
Solution: Use H-Bridges
Motor Driver:
H-Bridge
These use several driver circuits
All contained in an IC
H-Bridge:
Simplified
diagram
Turn selected switches on/off to control the current
path
H-Bridge
States
Close these switches:
Motor turns in one direction
Close these switches:
Motor turns in other direction
Datasheet of H bridge describes which pins does what
Goal is the same as brushed motors:
rotate something
Mechanics is different
Motors:
Brushless
Multiple inductors attract and
repel the magnet
Has more control over DC motors
Controlling brushless motors are
more complicated
But fairly easy to do with IC
chips/software libraries
While the mouse is moving around the maze, it needs to memorize it
It needs some way to tell how many cells it has transversed
So we need some kind of cell counter
Cell Counter
How does the
mouse know
going this far is
four cells long?
Solution: Rotary Encoder
Rotary
Encoder
Attach something to the wheels to count how many times the
wheels have turned to get distance
Two major flavors
Optical
Magnets with Hall effect sensor
LED shines light through holes in a disc
Rotary
Encoder:
Optical
A detector on the other side counts how many times the disc
turns
Attach magnets to a disc
Use Hall effect sensors to detect the changing magnetic field
Rotary
Encoder:
Magnetic
Next
Sensors!
Meet your team if you haven’t already