Micro-stepping Drive for Stepping Motor: Design

and Implementation
Prathmesh Deshmukh1 and Aanchal Datta2
Department of Electronics & Tele-Communication Engineering
Vishwakarma Institute of Information Technology, Pune
1
deshmukh.prathmesh1947@gmail.com 2aanchal051106@gmail.com

Abstract- The ability of a stepping motor to translate

switched excitation into precisely defined increments of
rotor position makes it one of the most famous motors used
in todays world with a large array of applications. This
paper deals with the design and implementation of a
Micro-stepping drive based on dedicated Integrated
circuits and H-bridge coupled by MOS-Gate driver logic
providing optimized drive sequences. The generation of
digital phase signals and their amplification by the drive
circuitry before being applied to the motor is the core idea
of this paper. The Micro-step mode of operation is not only
characterized by smoother performance but also higher
speed capability and efficiency.

I.

Bipolar stepper motors having two coils rotated along stator

and current can flow through it in both direction. That makes
the motor construction easier, but it needs such type of driver
circuit, which reverses the current flow through the entire coil
by alternating the polarity of the terminals, giving us the name
bipolar.
Current flow in the winding of a bipolar motor is
bidirectional. This requires changing the polarity of each end
of the windings. As shown in Figure 2, current will flow from
left to right in winding 1 when 1a is positive and 1b is
negative.

INTRODUCTION

The substantive property of the stepping motor is its ability

to move one incremental step at a time in accordance to the
programmed excitation it is provided, commonly known as
steps. A stepper motor increments one step with the change in
the direction of current flow in the field coil(s), reversing the
magnetic field of the stator poles, with the stator windings
arranged as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 2: Bipolar motor windings.

There is a confound number of circuits available for
switching current between the motor phases. This paper
concentrates on the implementation of dedicated integrated
circuits available, also on the design and execution of a
control circuit based on the concept of H-bridge.
The motor drive was implemented using the following two
methods:
Dedicated integrated circuits using Stepper motor
controller L297 and L298N which is a high voltage,
high current dual full bridge driver designed to drive
inductive loads by accepting standard TTl logic
levels [6] .
H-bridge using MOSFET IRF540n and MOS-Gate
driver IC IR 2104.

Figure 1:Stator winding arrangements in a permanent

magnet stepper motor [2].

II.

MODES OF STEPPER MOTOR OPERATION

There are 4 mode of operation of stepper motor which

are described as follows :
One Phase On full step drive.

This mode is characterized by the current driven only in one

winding at a given time.

Increasing the step rate by a corresponding factor (4, 8, 16,

32 or 64) for the same rpm further negates the motors
resonance problem.
III.

Figure 3: Wave control for full step, one phase on at a time

The torque generated in this mode is less, as only one
winding at a time is used. For the same stepper motor, we can
improve the torque characteristics, by designing a better
controller and thereby improving the drive capability [1].
Two Phase On full step drive.
With the current flowing in both windings simultaneously,
the rotor aligns itself between the two energized stator
windings.

THEORY OF MICROSTEPPING

The electrical sequence repeats itself after every fourth full

step which is evident from the wave flow control diagrams, as
in case of full or half stepping. This suggests that one full
electrical cycle consists of four full steps. One full step of
any stepper motor with any step angle corresponds to 360/4
or 90 degrees of electrical angle. Figure 6 shows the effect
of dividing the electrical angle into smaller, equal angles,
and the corresponding current is given to the stator windings..
As the rotor stable positions are in synchronization with the
stator flux in a stepper motor, each of the windings produces a
flux in the air gap proportional to the current in that winding
when the windings are energized,. So the flux in the air gap is
directly proportional to the vector sum of the winding
currents, in the resultant vector direction [2].
The current can be varied in one winding with a sine
function of an angle and in the other winding with a cosine
function of as shown in Figure 6.

Figure 4: Wave control for full step, two phases on at a time

The torque given by this method is 41.1 percent more than
One Phase On stepping since both the phases are ON [1].
Half step drive
Here the motor moves half of the full step angle (1.8/2
degrees in the case of a motor with 1.8 degrees of step angle).
This is a combination of One Phase On and Two Phase On
full step control as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 6: Current in stator during micro step and the resultant

current

Flux formula

At any angle , the resultant current remains same and equal to

IPEAK which is the rated current in the windings.
Ia= IPEAK * sin
Ib = IPEAK * cosine
Figure 5: Wave control for half step
Micro-stepping drive
This is accomplished by providing unequal currents in the
winding, facilitated by the rotor movement in terms of fraction
of the full step(1/4, 1/8, 1/16,1/32 or 1/64) [1].
When the step-rate equals the natural resonant frequency of
the motor, an audible change in the noise made by the motor,
as well as an increase in vibration is observed.

Where Ia is the instantaneous current in stator winding A and

Ib is the instantaneous current in stator winding B.
is the angle in electrical degrees from a full step position
(OR micro step angle) and IPEAK is the rated current of
winding.

Current in each winding will vary resulting in a rotating flux

corresponding to IPEAK in the air gap. A flux and a torque
corresponding to IPEAK is produced for each increment of
electrical angle , making micro-stepping possible by
producing a constant rotating flux/torque. However, here the
current in the one winding is varied as a function of sin to
maximize the motor torque and current in other winding is
kept constant over half of the complete step as shown in
Figure 7and Figure 8.

drive modes and on chip PWM chopper circuits permit switchmode control.
The generation of motor phase sequences is achieved by an
inbuilt translator with the phase sequences categorized as
HALF/FULL.
The advances of translator are decided on low to high
transitions of CLOCK [5]. As seen in Figure 3 SYNC is the
output of the on-chip chopper oscillator and an external clock
source is injected on this terminal, if used.
A,B,C and D being the phase drive signal can be brought to
low (inactive) by making the ENABLE pin low.
SENS1 and SENS2 are used as input for load current sense
voltage from power stages of phase signals.

Figure 7: Phase and current relationship [2]

The resultant current [2] is:

Figure 9:Two phase bipolar stepper motor circuit with up to

2A winding current [5].
A Dual Schottky diode bridge L6210 consisting of
monolithic array of eight Schottky diodes was used having 4 A
peak current, V(forward) 1.2V and t(reverse recovery) 200nsec [5].

Figure 8: Current flow in stator windings [2]

IV. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION AND MECHANISM

A. Driver using Stepper motor controller L297 and dual
full bridge driver L298N
Four phase drive signals are generated by L297 Stepper
Motor Controller IC used for two phase bipolar step motors.
The current in the windings can be controlled such as to
facilitate driving the step motor in half step, normal and wave

Whether the chopper will act on the phase lines ABCD or

the inhibit lines INH1 and INH2 is determined by an input
called CONTROL. The non-active phase line of each pair
(AB or CD) is activated when the phase lines
are chopped. This configuration is largely instrumental in
reducing the power dissipation in current sensing resistors.
The output signals corresponding to the subsequent input
signals mentioned above are given in Figure 4.
The voltage across sense resistors connected to SENS1 and
SENS2 equals Vref when the current in the windings reaches a
programmed peak value. A voltage divider on the Vref input
facilitates the programming of peak current in both the
windings.

the circuitry. A sense resistor is added so to be able to sense

the current through the windings. MOS-gated transistors are
switched on by providing charge to the gate terminal rather
than continuous current. Bootstrap capacitor (CBOOT), has
been added to the drive as shown in Figure 12 which has been
calculated using Equation 1 for the capacitor. The current to
the motor windings is given by the MOSFETs powered by an
unregulated supply.
Figure 10: Waveforms depicting the clockwise/counterclockwise incremental steps in HALF/Full mode.

Equation 1: Bootstrap capacitor calculation

B. H-bridge based drive using MOSFET IRF540n and

MOS-Gate driver IC IR 2104
The block diagram of micro-stepping drive with
microcontroller PIC18F4550 is shown in Figure 11.

Qg (Gate charge of high-side FET) = 20 nC [8]

f (frequency of operation) = 10Hz
Icbs (leak) = bootstrap capacitor leakage current = 30uA
Iqbs (max) = Maximum VBS quiescent current = 55uA
Vcc (Logic section voltage source) = 12V.
Vf (Forward voltage drop across the bootstrap diode) = 0.5V.
VLS (Voltage drop across the low-side FET or load).
VMin (Minimum voltage between VB and VS).
Qls (level shift charge required per cycle) which is typically 5
nC for 500 V/600 V MOSFET Gate Drives (MGD).
According to the Equation 1 the calculated C is 90uF and the
selected value is 100uF.

Figure 11: Block diagram for H-bridge drive

The H-Bridge Driver is based around MOS-gate driver IC
IR2104 which is a high side low side integrated half bridge
driver, controlled by an Input pin and a Shutdown pin. The
resistor connected in series to reduce the power dissipation
inside the IC.

The switching of the output (HO) between the positive of the

isolated supply connected between VB and VS and its ground
is achieved with the respective input commands.
V. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The control signals for the rotor positioning were produced by
L297 and controller PIC18F4550 for the two drives discussed
above.
The winding positions using delay and internal timer of
PIC18F4550 are obtained as shown in Figure 13 and Figure
14.

Figure 12: H-bridge using IR 2104 and IRF 540n

The power MOSFET which here is used as a switching
device is that it is a voltage-controlled device requiring
negligible drive power and that it has an intrinsic drainsource diode with the appropriate polarity for use as a
freewheeling diode in bridge circuits [2].
To increase the turn-off time of the MOSFET, a diode is
added in anti-parallel thus reducing the power dissipation of

Figure 13: Winding position using delay

Figure 14: Winding position using Timer

Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) using delay and internal
timer of PIC18F4550 are obtained as shown in Figure 15 and
Figure 16.
Figure 17: Current waveforms in the windings
VI. FUTURE SCOPE
Development of a closed-loop stepping motor system where
the rotor position is detected and fed back to the control unit.
Once the rotor position has been incremented satisfactorily,
then only the next command is issued as opposed to the
previous command so as to not lose synchronization between
two immediate positions of the rotor.

Figure 15: PWM using delay

Figure 18: Closed loop control of stepping motor [1]

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Figure 16: PWM using Timer

The H-Bridge based driver was tested observing the voltage
waveforms and PWM waveforms which were matching the
design. The current waveform was also observed which is
shown in Figure 17.

The authors express their profound gratitude to Prof. (Dr)

Shriganesh Prabhu, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research,
Prof. (Dr) C.S.Garde, VIIT Pune and Prof. P.G.Gawande, VIIT
Pune for their inspiring guidance and motivation throughout.
The authors acknowledge the support of Dept. of Electronics
& Tele-communication, VIIT Pune and Tejas Mishra for his
valuable support during the development.
REFERENCES
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]

Paul Acarnley, Stepping Motors a guide to theory and practice, 4th ed,
The institution of Engineers and technology (2002).
Application Note AN-822, Stepper motor Micro-stepping with PIC
18F452, Microchip.
Application Note AN-978, HV Floating MOS-Gate driver ICs,
International Rectifiers.
Application Note, Stepper motor driving, SGS-Thompson
Microelectronics.

[5]

Datasheet Stepper Motor Controller IC L297, ST Microelectronics.

[6]
[7]
[8]

Datasheet Stepper Motor Power IC L298N, ST Microelectronics.

Datasheet MOS-Gate driver IC IR 2104, International Rectifiers.
Datasheet MOSFET IRF 540n, International Rectifiers.