© 2005 Microchip Technology Inc.

DS93001A-page 3

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dsPIC30F APPLICATION NOTES

The following are some applications notes on BLDC

motor control with the dsPIC30F that will help you jump

start your BLDC motor control project

AN957, “Sensored BLDC Motor Control

Using dsPIC30F2010”

This application note describes a simple open and

closed-loop solution to control a sensored BLDC motor

using a 28-pin dsPIC30F2010. The solution described

uses the six-step commutation method described

above to rotate and control the sensored BLDC motor.

The hardware platform used is the PICDEM™ MC LV

Board. With minor modifications, this application note

can be used with any other hardware platform from

Microchip (see the following section on motor control

boards). The firmware, with minor modifications, can

also be used with any motor control dsPIC30F device.

The dsPIC30F2010 is ideally suited for this application

due to on-chip availability of the motor control PWM,

Hall sensor and QEI input modules and the ability of the

DSP engine to compute multiple PID control loops.

AN901, “Using the dsPIC30F for

Sensorless BLDC Control”

This application note describes how to implement

sensorless control of a BLDC motor using the back EMF

detection technique mentioned above. The back EMF

voltage is attenuated and fed to the ADC inputs of the

ADC is then used to detect the zero crossing. This tech-

nique provides a very efficient control method for starting

and running a sensorless BLDC motor with a minimum

of components. The hardware used is a dsPICDEM™

MC1 Motor Control Development Board used in con-

junction with either a dsPICDEM MC1L 3-Phase Low-

Voltage Power module or a dsPICDEM MC1H 3-Phase

High-Voltage Power module.

A dsPIC30F6010 device is used on the MC1 board in

this application. The application note describes in detail

how to start and run a sensorless BLDC motor. The

control method, however, is general enough to work

with any BLDC motor available in the market. Details

are provided to assist you in configuring the 45 param-

eters needed to start and run the BLDC motor. All 45 of

these user parameters can be set using the LCD and

push buttons available on the MC1 development board.

The firmware supports four different control modes and

two starting modes. The hardware drive section is

connected via a 37-pin D-type connector to either a

high-voltage or low-voltage power module, which

allows for BLDC motors that can operate in the voltage

range from 10 to 400 VDC. The firmware can also be

modified to work with any motor control dsPIC30F

device.

The dsPIC30F6010 is ideally suited for this application

because it includes on-chip motor control PWM, Hall

sensor and QEI input modules, along with a fast ADC

required to sample the back EMF and detect zero

crossing. A powerful DSP engine is available to

compute multiple PID control loops.

AN992, “Sensorless BDLC Motor Control

Using dsPIC30F2010”

This application note takes the application described in

AN901 one step further and provides a low-cost, yet

efficient, implementation on the smallest dsPIC30F

motor control device available, namely the 28-pin

dsPIC30F2010 with 12 Kbytes of program memory and

512 bytes of RAM. The hardware is simplified and uses

the stand-alone PICDEM™ MC LV board as the

hardware platform.

Because the PICDEM MC LV board has no LCD and

the dsPIC30F2010 has limited I/O, the 45 user param-

eters are set using a PC via the serial port and a

HyperTerminal link.

The PICDEM MC LV only supports voltages from 10 to

40 VDC, hence, only low-voltage BLDC motors are

able to run on this board. However, the technique used

in this application can be extrapolated. If higher voltage

and current drivers are provided to support higher volt-

age and current, then a similar, but modified hardware

can be used to run BLDC motors from 40V to 400V DC.

The dsPIC30F2010 is ideally suited for this application.

It includes on-chip motor control PWM, Hall sensor and

QEI input modules, along with a fast ADC to sample the

back EMF and detect zero crossing. A powerful DSP

engine is available to compute multiple PID control

loops.