Brushless DC Motor Testbench

Abstract

Brushless DC motors contribute to a vast number of applications nowadays. For novice engineers, understanding the principle of a working motor would be a valuable experience encouraging their future careers. This project implemented a beginner-friendly library for controlling a BLDC motor in an STM32 environment, with the working principle of the motor and a simple test bench for the project.

A NUCLEO-L152RE development board was chosen as the microcontroller unit. The used motor was a Nanotec DF45M024053-A2 BLDC motor and an X-NUCLEO-IHM07M extension board was chosen as its driver. A specific library for operating and basic testing the motor was developed using Atollic TrueSTUDIO for STM32 9.3.0 IDE, which included the bare metal programs for operating the microcontroller and their application in driving the motor.

The testbench was designed with a simplified setup and real-time data acquisition capability, making it suitable for students with different technical knowledge levels. The testbench was tested using speed, load, and efficiency parameters, providing practical insights into BLDC motor behaviours. The results show the efficacy of the testbench in making it an attractive option for educational purposes with the resources of an average laboratory.