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Stepper Motor
What is a Stepper Motor?

It is a brushless electromechanical device which converts electric energy by applying

a train of electric pulses at the excitation windings into precisely defined step-by-step
mechanical shaft rotation. The shaft of the motor rotates through a fixed angle for each
discrete pulse. The angle through which the stepper motor shaft turns for each pulse is
referred as the step angle, which is generally expressed in degrees.The rotation can be linear
or angular.It gets one step movement for a single pulse input.
The number of input pulses given to the motor decides the step angle and hence the
position of motor shaft is controlled by controlling the number of pulses. This unique feature
makes the stepper motor to be well suitable for open-loop control system wherein the precise
position of the shaft is maintained with exact number of pulses without using a feedback
sensor.
If the step angle is smaller, the greater will be the number of steps per revolutions and
higher will be the accuracy of the position obtained. The step angles can be as large as 90
degrees and as small as 0.72 degrees, however, the commonly used step angles are 1.8
degrees, 2.5 degrees, 7.5 degrees and 15 degrees.
The direction of the shaft rotation depends on the sequence of pulses applied to the
stator. The speed of the shaft or the average motor speed is directly proportional to the
frequency (the rate of input pulses) of input pulses being applied at excitation windings.
Therefore, if the frequency is low, the stepper motor rotates in steps and for high frequency,
it continuously rotates like a DC motor due to inertia.
Like all electric motors, it has stator and rotor. The rotor is the movable part which
has no windings, brushes and a commutator. Usually the rotors are either variable reluctance
or permanent magnet kind. The stator is often constructed with multipole and multiphase
windings, usually of three or four phase windings wound for a required number of poles
decided by desired angular displacement per input pulse.

Applications:
1. Industrial Machines Stepper motors are used in automotive gauges and machine
tooling automated production equipments.
2. Security new surveillance products for the security industry.
3. Medical Stepper motors are used inside medical scanners, samplers, and also found
inside digital dental photography, fluid pumps, respirators and blood analysis
machinery.
4. Consumer Electronics Stepper motors in cameras for automatic digital camera
focus and zoom functions.
5. Robotics Stepper motors are used in making robots for angular motion.
Stepper Motors are also used in business machines applications, computer
peripherals applications etc.

Advantages of Stepper Motor:

1. The rotation angle of the motor is proportional to the input pulse.
2. The motor has full torque at standstill.

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3. Precise positioning and repeatability of movement.

4. Excellent response to starting, stopping and reversing.
5. Very reliable since there are no contact brushes in the motor.
6. Very low speed synchronous rotation can be achieved with a load that is directly
coupled to the shaft.
7. A wide range of rotational speeds can be realized as the speed is proportional to the
frequency of the input pulses.

How a stepper motor works?

Stepper motors work on the principle of electromagnetism. There is a soft iron or

magnetic rotor shaft surrounded by the electromagnetic stators. The rotor and stator have
poles with teeth. When the stators are energized applying electric pulses the rotor moves to
align itself along with the stator (in case of a PM type stepper) or moves to have a minimum
gap with the stator (in case of a VR stepper). This way the stators are energized in a sequence
to rotate the stepper motor.

Stepper Motor are Control by Varying Clock Pulses

Stepper motor control circuit is a simple astable multi-vibrator. The output of Astable
multivibrator is a Pulse which has only ON and OFF time periods, determined by
combinations of the capacitor and resistors(RC) to give a time constant. By altering the time
constant of the RC combinations, the Duty Cycle(ON time divided by ON plus OFF time)
also known as the Mark-to-Space ratio of the output waveform can be accurately set. By
varying Duty cycle, we get a Pulse Width Modulated(PWM) signal which can control the
speed of stepper motor.
Step Angle can be calculated by following relations.

Where = Step angle in degree, m = Number of stator phases, N r = Number of rotor

poles(or teeth)

Stepping rate: The number of steps per second is known as stepping rate or stepping
frequency(f). The actual speed depends on the step angle() and stepping frequency(f) and is
given by:

Speed of stepper motor, N = f / 6

Where N = Motor speed in rpm, f = Stepping frequency i.e., steps per second

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There are three types of stepper motor -

1) Variable Relectance(VR) Stepper

motor
2) Permanenet Magnet(PM) Stepper
motor
3) Hybrid Synchronous Stepper
motor

All the above three stepper motors may

be unipolar or bipolar based on the coil
winding arrangements.

1) Variable-Reluctance(VR) Stepper Motor

It operates on the same principle as reluctance motor. Reluctance is the magnetic
resistance experienced by a conductor when placed in a magnetic field.
Principle of reluctance motor is that when a piece of ferromagnetic material, free to
rotate,is placed in a magnetic field,torque acts on the material to bring it to the
minimumn reluctance to the path of magnetic flux.
Construction:
Stator of VR stepper motor is composed of steel laminations & carries stator winding.
Stator windings are energised from a d.c. Source to create two or more stator poles.
Stator phase windings are wound on each stator tooth.
Rotor of the motor is made of soft steel with teeth and slots.
One set of stator and rotor teeth will align at any given instant.
The Step angle of a VR Stepper motor is given by,

Where Ns is the number of poles of stator, Nr is the number of poles of rotor.

Therefore,rotor will turn 30 each time a pulse is applied.

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Fig:2 Variable-Reluctance(VR) Stepper Motor

Operation of VR Stepper Motor

When phase winding is energised, rotor teeth will align with energised ststor poles.

When phase A is energised, rotor will held stationary.

Rotor teeth 1 and 2 are aligned with energised stator teeth 1 and 4.

Step angle = 0.

When phase A is switch off and phase B is energised, rotor will turn 30 clockwise.
Rotor teeth 3 and 4 are aligned with energised stator teeth 6 and 3.
When phase B is de-energised and phase C is energised, rotor will turn another 30
clockwise. Rotor teeth 1 and 2 are aligned with energised stator teeth 2 and 5.
After rotor has displaced 60 from its starting point,the step sequence has completed
one cycle. Switching sequence to complete 360 rotation of motor with six poles and
four rotor poles are shown in Truth Table.
Truth Table of VR Stepper Motor

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2) Permanent Magnet(PM) Stepper Motor

A permanent magnet (PM) stepper motor is a popular type of stepper motor. It is also
known as can-stack or tin-can motor. This type has 24-48 steps per revolution.
It operates on the principle of interaction between a permanent-magnet rotor and an
electromagnetic field in stator.
Construction:

Stator of PM stepper motor is composed of steel laminations and which has coil
winding on it.

Stator windings are energised from a d.c. source to create two or more stator poles.

Rotor is a Permenent magnet made of high-retentivity steel alloy(Ferrite)having even

number of magnetic poles,alternate N and S.
PM stepper Motor

2-pole single phase PM stepper motor

When stator is energised,excitation torque acts on the rotor and make move to a
position where excitation torque is zero.(Rotor parallely aligned with stator field).

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Maximum torque is developed when rotor moves to 90 or 270.

Step Angle of PM Stepper Motor

Step Angle: The angle through which the motor shaft rotates in degree for each
applied excitation pulse.

Step Angle can be calculated as

Figure-4: Two-phase,2-pole PM Stepper Motor

1) In above Fig-4, the PM Stepper motor has two rotor poles. The Stator coils are grouped
to form 2-phase winding(phase A winding and phase B winding.
2) The phase winding terminals are brought out for D.C. Excitation.
Operation of PM Stepper Motor

For Two-phase,2-pole PM Stepper Motor, Number of rotor poles,N r=2, Number

of stator phases,m=2

(i) When only phase A winding is excited by a constant current,phase B winding is

unexcited,stator tooth 1 becomes south pole and align with north pole and rotor is
locked at this position,step angle = 0
(ii) If phase A winding is de-energised and phase B winding is energised,stator tooth 2
becomes south pole and align with north pole of rotor and rotor is displaced 90
anticlockwise.
(iii) If phase B winding is de-energised and phase A winding is energised with reverse
current,stator tooth 3 becomes south pole and align with north pole of rotor and rotor
further displaced 90 anticlockwise.
(iv) Thus rotor has completed one-half revolution.If continue switching,rotor will
complete one complete revolution in 90 steps.

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Step angle of PM stepper motor can be changed by changing no. of rotor

poles(Nr) and no. of phases(m) of stator. Thus for a 3-phase, 24-poles PM stepper
motor,the step angle is:
Step angle =360/mNr = 360/3x24 = 5/step

Truth Table of PM Stepper Motor

Limitations

(i) Difficult to make small PM rotor with large poles,so restricted to large step angle.
(ii) PM stepper motor has high inertia due to PM rotor,so have slow acceleration.
(iii) PM stepper motor has high rotational speed due to large stepping angle,so low
torque

3) Hybrid Stepper Motor

It is a combination of the features of VR and PM stepper motor. Torque

developed by this motor is greater than that of VR or PM types.

Construction:

Stator construction is similar to VR or PM type.

Rotor consists of two identical stacks of soft iron with an axially magnetised around
PM.
Soft iron stacks are attached to north & south poles of PM.

Rotor teeth on one end become noth pole and those on the other end become south
poles.

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Fig-6: Schematic of Hybrid Stepper Motor

Operation of Hybrid Stepper Motor

The operating mode of hybrid stepper motor is very similar to that of a PM or VR

stepper motor.
The stator phase winding are energised in proper sequence and rotor pole rotates in
steps.

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The step angle of Hybrid stepper motor is independent of the number of stator phases
and depends only on the number of rotor teeth(Nr).

Thus Step angle , = 90/Nr in degrees

For a hybrid stepper motor having 5 rotor teeth , the step angle = 90/Nr = 90/5=18/step.

It means that for each change of stator excitation,rotor will turn by a step of 18.

Unipolar and Bipolar Stepper Motors

There are two basic winding arrangements for the electromagnetic coils in a two
phase stepper motor, one being unipolar and the other bipolar.

Unipolar Stepper Motor:

A unipolar stepper motor is employed with two windings per phase and hence the
direction of current flow through these windings changes the direction of rotation of the
motor. In this configuration, the current flow is through one direction in one coil and
opposite direction in another coil.

The unipolar stepper motor operates with one winding with a center tap per phase.
Each section of the winding is switched on for each direction of the magnetic field. Each
winding is made relatively simple with the commutation circuit, this is done since the
arrangement has a magnetic pole which can be reversed without switching the direction of the
current.

The figure-7 below on left shows 2-phase unipolar stepper motor wherein A and C
coils are for one phase and B and D are for other phase. In each phase each coil carries
current in opposite direction to that of other coil. Only one coil will be carrying current at a
time in each phase for achieving particular direction of rotation. So just by switching the
terminals to each coil, the direction of rotation is controlled.

Fig-7: Unipolar Stepper Motor diagram

In most cases, the phase winding are made the common center tap for each winding
such as; three leads per phase and six leads for a regular two phase stepper motor. Usually

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both these phases are often joined internally and this makes the stepper motor only have five
leads as shown above Fig-7 on right.

Bipolar Stepper Motor:

In bipolar stepper motor there is only a single winding per phase. Reversing the
magnetic pole can reverse the current in the winding for reverse rotation which is done by
using driver circuit like H-Bridge. The bipolar stepper motor has two leads per phase, neither
of which are common as shown in the fig-8 below.

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