Module 4 : Drives and Mechanisms

Lecture 2 : Stepper motors and Servo motors

2.  Servomotor

Servomotors are special electromechanical devices that produce precise degrees of rotation. A servo motor is a DC or AC or brushless DC motor combined with a position sensing device. Servomotors are also called control motors as they are involved in controlling a mechanical system. The servomotors are used in a closed-loop servo system as shown in Figure 4.2.4. A reference input is sent to the servo amplifier, which controls the speed of the servomotor. A feedback device is mounted on the machine, which is either an encoder or resolver. This device changes mechanical motion into electrical signals and is used as a feedback. This feedback is sent to the error detector , which compares the actual operation with that of the reference input. If there is an error, that error is fed directly to the amplifier, which will be used to make necessary corrections in control action. In many servo systems, both velocity and position are monitored. Servomotors provide accurate speed, torque, and have ability of direction control.

Fig. 4.2.4 Servo system block diagram

2.1  DC servomotors

DC operated servomotors are usually respond to error signal abruptly and accelerate the load quickly. A DC servo motor is actually an assembly of four separate components, namely:

2.2. AC servo motor

In this type of motor, t he magnetic force is generated by a permanent magnet and current which further produce the torque. It has no brushes so there is little noise/vibration. This motor provides high precision control with the help of high resolution encoder. The stator is composed of a core and a winding. The rotor part comprises of shaft, rotor core and a permanent magnet.

Digital encoder can be of optical or magnetic type. It gives digital signals, which are in proportion of rotation of the shaft. The details about optical encoder have already discussed in Lecture 3 of Module 2.

Advantages of servo motors

Disadvantages of servo motors