Differential Drive Motor Control for 3D-printed Robots
R.C. Appel (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
J. van der Geize (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
Jianning Dong – Mentor (TU Delft - DC systems, Energy conversion & Storage)
Sachin Yadav – Mentor (TU Delft - DC systems, Energy conversion & Storage)
More Info
expand_more
Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.
Abstract
In this thesis, a motor controller was designed, implemented on a Printed Circuit Board (PCB), and validated. The motor controller was designed to drive a motor as part of a differential drive configuration, it does this based on external signals which are generated by a Finite State Machine (FSM). The PCB was specifically designed to implement the following features: driving the motor, communication with other subsystems via a CAN interface, determining the current draw of the motor, and measuring the position and speed of the wheels. A Proportional-Integral (PI) feedback controller was designed and tuned to determine the duty cycle of the motors based on speed measurements. To validate the design, the PI controller response was measured and documented, and compared against the theoretical model. The PI controller proved to be an effective solution and was congruent with the theoretical model, albeit with some non-linearities which came with the physical implementation. Furthermore, the CAN communication protocol was verified by measuring a handshaking signal.