Atmel has expanded AVR microcontroller support to AC and brushless DC (BLDC) motor control applications. The high performance and extensive feature set of the AVR Flash microcontroller set help designers meet the variety of technical constraints associated with motor control designs.
Using a microcontroller for motor control is an attractive alternative to existing application-specific standard products (ASSP) that are often too specific and limited for the target application, says the company. Ranging from 8- to 100-pin devices, AVR Flash microcontrollers are well suited for simple applications such as PC fans up to highly advanced motor control applications. Since all AVRs incorporate a Flash program memory and an EEPROM, the designer can use the same microcontroller for multiple designs and the latest programs can be installed at any time during product life cycle. Moreover, says Atmel, the code compatibility of AVR allows designers to port their development to other AVR devices and serve various needs. Such flexibility results in shorter time to market and helps minimise system cost.
Operation
Motor control is realised by using the internal timers with PWM (pulse width modulation), analog-digital converter (ADC) and I/Os with interrupt. The PWM handles the voltage pattern applied to the motor and enables speed and acceleration control. The onboard 10-bit ADC measures power consumption and provides over-current warnings to the target application while the AVR's pin-change interrupt monitors the Hall sensors of the BLDC. For sensor-less BLDC, the AVR's ADC and analog comparator are used to predict the position of the motor. All features are interrupt-based, enabling the motor control functionality to be implemented while leaving additional resources to other application requirements. Typically this could include customised start-up sequences, temperature considerations, SMBus, two-wire interface and SPI communication.
The AVR is optimised for high level programming languages such as C and offers exceptional code density. To strengthen AVR motor control support, Atmel has a dedicated web section at www.atmel.com/products/avr/mc, which provides a number of new application notes, reference designs and starter-kits covering AC and BLDC motors of different types and sizes. The variety of ready-to-use implementation examples is shown.
Atmel provides a full range of programming and development tools, all interfaced by the AVR Studio front-end. AVR Studio includes a simulator and an assembler and is available at no cost from www.atmel.com.
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