A permanent magnet (PM) stepper

motor
• A permanent magnet (PM) stepper motor has salient pole stator. The
stator has concentrated windings placed over the stator poles. It has
cylindrical rotor and consists of permanent magnet poles made up of
high retentivity steel. The construction of a 4/2-pole (i.e., 4-poles on
the stator and 2-poles on the rotor) permanent magnet stepper
motor is shown in the figure. Here, the concentrated windings on
diametrically opposite poles are connected in series to form two-
phase stator windings.
A permanent magnet (PM) stepper
motor
A permanent magnet (PM) stepper
motor
• n a permanent magnet stepper motor, the rotor poles align with the
stator poles depending upon the excitation of the winding. The two
coils A-A’ are connected in series to form the winding of phase A.
Similarly, the two coils B-B’ are connected in series to form the
winding of phase B. The stator windings A and B can be excited as
follows
A permanent magnet (PM) stepper
motor
A permanent magnet (PM) stepper
motor
A permanent magnet (PM) stepper
motor
A permanent magnet (PM) stepper
motor
Construction of Single-Stack Variable Reluctance Stepper Motor

• A single-stack variable reluctance stepper motor consists of a salient

pole stator. The stator has concentrated windings placed over the
stator poles. The number of stator phases depends upon the
connection of stator coils. The rotor of the single-stack variable
reluctance stepper motor is a slotted structure made up of
ferromagnetic material and carries no winding.
• In a single-stack variable reluctance stepper motor, both the stator
and rotor are made up of high quality magnetic materials having very
high permeability so that the excitation current required by the motor
is very small.
Operation of Single-stack Variable Reluctance
Stepper Motor
When the stator phases are excited in a proper sequence from a DC source with the help of
semiconductor switches, a magnetic field is produced in the motor. The ferromagnetic rotor occupies the
position which presents minimum reluctance in the path of stator field. Thus, the rotor axis aligns itself to
the axis of stator magnetic field.
Operation of Single-stack Variable
Reluctance Stepper Motor
• Consider a single-stack variable reluctance stepper motor has 4-phases,
4/2-pole (i.e., 4-poles in the stator and 2-poles in the rotor). The 4-phases
viz. A, B, C, D of the motor are connected to a DC source through the
semiconductor switches SA, SB, SC and SD respectively. The stator phase
windings of the motor are excited in the sequence A, B, C, D, A.
• When the phase winding A is excited, the rotor aligns with the axis of the
phase A. The rotor will remain stable in this position and cannot move
until the phase A is de-energised.
• Next, the phase B is energised and the phase A is de-energised. The rotor
will move through 90° in the clockwise direction to align with the stator
field which now lies along the axis of phase B.
Operation of Single-stack Variable
Reluctance Stepper Motor
• Now, the phase C is excited and the phase B is de-energised, the rotor moves
through a further step of 90° in the clockwise direction. In this position, the rotor
aligns with the magnetic field of the stator which now lies along the axis of the
phase C. Hence, as the phases are excited in the sequence A, B, C, D, A the rotor
moves through a step of 90° at each transition in the clockwise direction. The
rotor completes one revolution through four steps. The direction of the rotation
of the rotor can be reversed by reversing the sequence of switching the windings
i.e. for the rotation in the anticlockwise direction, the sequence of the phase
excitation would be A, D, C, B, A.
• From the above discussion, it is clear that the direction of the rotation of the
rotor of a single-stack variable reluctance stepper motor depends only on the
sequence of switching the phases and is independent of the direction of currents
through the phases.
Operation of Single-stack Variable
Reluctance Stepper Motor
Stepangle,α=360°msNrStepangle,α=360/°𝑚𝑠𝑁𝑟
• Where,
• ms is the number of stator phases
• Nr is the number of rotor poles.
Operation of Single-stack Variable
Reluctance Stepper Motor
• The step angle of a variable reluctance stepper motor can be reduced from 90° to
45° by exciting the phases in the sequence A, A+B, B, B+C, C, C+D, D, D+A, A. Here
(A+B) means the phases A and B are excited together and hence the resultant
stator magnetic field will be midway between the poles carrying the phase
windings A and B, i.e., the resultant field axis makes an angle of 45° with axis of
the pole A in the clockwise direction.
• Therefore, when phase A is excited, the rotor aligns with the axis of the phase A.
When the phases A and B are excited together, the rotor moves by 45° in the
clockwise direction. Thus, this method of gradually shifting of excitation from one
phase to another with an intermediate step is known as micro-stepping.
The micro-stepping is used to realise smaller steps. In order to obtain a lower
value of step angle, more number of poles on the stator and teeth on the rotor
are used.
Torque-Pulse Rate Characteristics of a Stepper Motor

• The torque-pulse rate characteristics of a stepper motor is the graph

plotted between the electromagnetic torque and the stepping rate. It
gives the variation of electromagnetic torque as a function of stepping
rate in pulses per second (pps). A stepper motor is usually described
by two characteristic curves as shown in the figure
Torque-Pulse Rate Characteristics of
a Stepper Motor
Advantages of Stepper Motors

• Advantages of Stepper Motors

• The chief advantages of the stepper motors are given as follows −
• Stepper motors have longer life.
• Stepper motors have high holding torque.
• Stepper motors have a low maintenance cost.
• Stepper motors produce high torque at low speed.
• Stepper motors operate on an open-loop system and do not require an
encoder, this makes the stepper motor less complex and inexpensive.
• The rotation angle of the stepper motor is proportional to the input pulse.
• Stepper motors have excellent response to starting, stopping and reversing
Disadvantages of Stepper Motors

• Disadvantages of Stepper Motors

• Stepper motors suffer from the following disadvantages −
• With the increase in the speed of the motor, the torque of the
stepper motor starts to decrease.
• Stepper motors take a much larger current, which makes them less
efficient.
• There is no feedback used in the stepper motor which indicates to the
missed steps.
Applications of Stepper Motors

• Stepper motors are used in numeric control of machines tools.

• They are used in tape drives and floppy disc drives.
• They are used in printers and X-Y plotters.
• They also find application in robotics, textile industries, integrated circuit
fabrication and electric watches etc.
• Stepper motors are also used in space crafts launched for scientific
explorations of planets.
• Stepper motors are used in the production of science fiction movies.
• Apart from the above applications, the stepper motors are also used in
commercial, medical and military applications and will be increasingly used in
future.
Applications of Stepper Motors
• Stepper motors are used in automotive gauges and automated
production devices.
• Stepper motors are used in medical scanners, samplers, digital dental
photography, respirators, blood analysis machinery and many more
medical applications.
• Stepper motors are used in digital cameras for automatic focus and
zoom functions
Multi-Stack Variable Reluctance
Stepper Motor
• A multi-stack variable reluctance stepper motor having m-stacks can be
considered to be made of m identical single-stack variable reluctance
stepper motors with their rotors mounted on a single shaft.
• In the multi-stack variable reluctance stepper motor, the stators and the
rotors have the same number of poles or teeth and hence the same pole
pitch. Therefore, for an m-stack stepper motor, the stator poles in all m-
stacks are aligned, but the rotor poles are displaced by (1m)(1m) of the
pole pitch angle from one another.
• All the stator pole windings in a given stack being energised simultaneously
and thus, the stator winding of each stack forms one phase. Hence, the
stepper motor has the same number of phases as the number of stacks
Multi-Stack Variable Reluctance
Stepper Motor
Multi-Stack Variable Reluctance
Stepper Motor
• Stepper motor is a specially designed DC motor that can be driven by
giving excitation pulses to the phase windings. They cannot be driven
by just connecting the positive and negative leads of the power
supply.
• They are driven by a stepping sequence which is generated by a
controller. The motor moves in steps according to this sequence. This
post will discuss the basic theory behind the stepper motors.
Multi-Stack Variable Reluctance
Stepper Motor
• The cross-sectional view of a three-stack variable reluctance stepper
motor is shown in the figure. Let, in each stack of the given stepper
motor, stators and rotors have 12 poles. For a 12-pole rotor, the pole
pitch is being 30 and hence, the rotor poles are displaced from each
other by (13)(13) of the pole pitch i.e. by 10°. The stator teeth in each
stack are aligned
Multi-Stack Variable Reluctance
Stepper Motor
• When the phase winding A is energised, the rotor teeth of stack A are
aligned with the stator teeth. When phase winding B is excited and
the phase winding A is de-energised, the rotor teeth of the stack B are
aligned with the stator teeth. This new alignment is made by the rotor
movement of 10° in the anti-clockwise direction. Hence, the rotor
moves one step due to change of the excitation from stack A to stack
B.
• Next, the phase C is excited and the phase B is de-energised, then the
rotor moves by another step of (13)(13) of pole pitch in the anti-
clockwise direction. Further change of excitation from stack C to stack
A will once more align the stator and rotor teeth in the stack
Stepper Motor
• It is a brushless electromechanical device which converts the train of
electric pulses applied at their 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. This
rotation can be linear or angular.It gets one step movement for a
single pulse input.
• When a train of pulses is applied, it gets turned through a certain
angle. The angle through which the stepper motor shaft turns for
each pulse is referred as the step angle, which is generally expressed
in degrees
Stepper Motor
• 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.
Stepper Motor
• 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.
Stepper Motor
• Due to the precise control of speed, rotation, direction, and angular
position, these are of particular interest in industrial process control
systems, robotics, manufacturing automation systems, and
instrumentation.
• Printers are a great source for stepper motors. Old dot matrix printers
have a big and a small stepper motor. These are the stepper motors
that I was able scavenge out of old dot matrix printers from my dad’s
office.
Stepper Motor
Stepper Motor
• Printers are a great source for stepper motors. Old dot matrix printers
have a big and a small stepper motor. These are the stepper motors
that I was able scavenge out of old dot matrix printers from my dad’s
office.
Stepper Motor types
ADVANTAGES
 The motor is simple in construction, reliable.
 At the standstill condition, the motor has full torque.
 The motors are less costly.
 They require little maintenance.
 The stepper motor has an excellent and accurate starting,
stopping and reversing response.
Stepper Motor
• The motor uses more current as compared to the DC motor.
• At the higher speed, the value of torque reduces.
• Lower efficiency.
• The Resonance condition arises and requires micro stepping.
Variable Reluctance Stepper Motor

• The principle of Variable Reluctance Stepper Motor is based on the

property of the flux lines which capture the low reluctance path. The stator
and the rotor of the motor are aligned in such a way that the magnetic
reluctance is minimum. There are two types of the Variable Reluctance
Stepper Motor.
• Single Stack Variable Reluctance Motor
• Multi Stack Variable Reluctance Motor.

• A four phase or (4/2 pole), single stack variable reluctance stepper motor is
shown below. Here, (4/2 pole) means that the stator has four poles and the
rotor has two poles.
The phase windings of the stator are energized in the sequence
A, B, C, D, A. The rotor aligns itself with the axis of phase A as
the winding A is energized. The rotor is stable in this position
and cannot move until phase A is de-energized.
From the above discussion, the following
observations can be made
When the sequence of supply to phases is A-B-C-
A...., the movement of the rotor is in an anti-
clockwise direction.
When the sequence of supply to phases is C-B-A-
C..., the movement of the rotor is in a clockwise
direction.

Therefore step angle is given by,

αs = 360⁰ / n p
Where
n = No. of stator phases, and
p = No. of rotor pole/rotor teeth.
variable reluctance Stepper Motor
• Now, the phase B is excited and phase A is disconnected. The rotor moves
90 degrees in the clockwise direction to align with the resultant air gap
field which lies along the axis of phase B. Similarly the phase C is
energized, and the phase B is disconnected, and the rotor moves again in
45 degrees to align itself with the axis of the phase
• Thus, as the Phases are excited in the order as A, B, C, D, A, the rotor
moves 45 degrees at each transition step in the clockwise direction. The
rotor completes one revolution in 4 steps. The direction of the rotation
depends on the sequence of switching the phase and does not depend on
the direction of the current flowing through the phase. Thus, the direction
can be reversed by changing the phase sequence like A, D, C, B, A.
variable reluctance Stepper Motor
• A is de-energized.
• Now, the phase B is excited and phase A is disconnected. The rotor
moves 90 degrees in the clockwise direction to align with the
resultant air gap field which lies along the axis of phase B. Similarly
the phase C is energized, and the phase B is disconnected, and the
rotor moves again in 90 degrees to align itself with the axis of the
phase
variable reluctance Stepper Motor
• Thus, as the Phases are excited in the order as A, B, C, D, A, the rotor
moves 45degrees at each transition step in the clockwise direction.
The rotor completes one revolution in 4 steps. The direction of the
rotation depends on the sequence of switching the phase and does
not depend on the direction of the current flowing through the phase.
Thus, the direction can be reversed by changing the phase sequence
like A, D, C, B, A.
variable reluctance Stepper Motor
The magnitude of the step angle of the variable reluctance motor is
given as

• α is the step angle

• ms is the number of stator phases Where, NS is the stator poles

• Nr is the number of rotor teeth

The step angle is expressed as shown below.
variable reluctance Stepper Motor
• The step angle can be reduced further in a clockwise direction by
exciting the phase in the sequence A, A+B, B, B+C, C, C+ D, D, D+A, A.
• Similarly, if the sequence is reversed as A, A+D, D, D+C, C, C+B, B, B+A,
A, the rotor rotates in the anticlockwise direction.
• Here, (A+B) means that the phase windings A and B both are
energized together. The resultant field is the midway of the two poles.
This method of shifting excitation from one phase to another is
known as Micro stepping.By using Stepper Motor, lower values of the
step angle can be obtained with numbers of poles on the stator.
Multi Stack Variable Reluctance Stepper Motor
A Multi Stack or m stack variable reluctance stepper motor

• A Multi Stack or m stack variable reluctance stepper motor is made up

of m identical single stack variable reluctance motor. The rotor is
mounted on the single shaft. The stator and rotor of the Multi Stack
Variable motor have the same number of poles and hence, the same
pole pitch.
• All the stator poles are aligned in a Multi-Stack motor. But the rotor
poles are displaced by 1/m of the pole pitch angle from each other.
The stator windings of each stack forms one phase as the stator pole
windings are excited simultaneously. Thus, the number of phases and
the number of stacks are same.
Multi Stack Variable Reluctance Stepper Motor
A Multi Stack or m stack
variable reluctance stepper motor

There are 12 stator and rotor poles in each stack. The pole pitch
for the 12 pole rotor is 30, and the step angle or the rotor pole
teeth are displaced by 10 degrees from each other

Multi Stack Variable Reluctance Stepper Motors are widely

used to obtain smaller step angles in the range of 2 to 15
degrees. Both the Variable reluctance motor Single Stack and
Multi Stack types have a high torque to inertia ratio.
Characteristics of a Stepper Motor

• The Torque pulse rate Characteristics of a Stepper Motor gives the

variation of an electromagnetic torque as a function of stepping rate
in pulse per second (PPS). There are two characteristic curves 1 and 2
shown in the figure below. Curve one is denoted by a blue colour line
is known as the Pull-in torque. It shows the maximum stepping rate
for the various values of the load torque at which the motor can start,
synchronise, stop or reverse.
• Similarly, the curve 2 represented by Red colour line is known as
pullout torque characteristics. It shows the maximum stepping rate of
the motor where it can run for the various values of load torque. But
it cannot start, stop or reverse at this rate.
Characteristics of a Stepper Motor
Advantages of Variable Reluctance Stepper Motor

• High torque to inertia ratio.

• High rates of acceleration.
• Fast dynamic response.
• Simple and low-cost machine.
• Rotor construction is robust due to the absence of brushes
Disadvantages of Variable reluctance stepper motor

• Speed control is not possible for this machine, as it rotates in steps.

• For a particular operation, the step size is fixed.
• Due to its step rotation, it has less number of applications
• The electronic devices cause some losses such as switching losses.
 Applications

• Mostly these types of motors are used in toys, tape recorders,

advanced clocks, printing machines, etc.
• Hence, this is
all about an overview of the variable reluctance stepper motor. We
have seen the operation, constructional aspects, and advantages of
the stepper motor. By varying the firing angle we can vary different
control aspects of the machine. And we can form a closed-loop
operation of the motor circuits and using controllers like PID, space
vector controller, etc. It is interesting to think in variable reluctance
stepper motor, is it possible to obtain the rotation of the rotor in both
clockwise and counterclockwise direction?