GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY- GOLD COAST

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING
3312ENG: DIGITAL SIGNAL PROCESSING

CONCEPT REPORT
Motor Control
The report presented is the sole work of the author.
None of this report is plagiarised (in whole or part) from a
fellow student's work, or from any un-referenced outside source.

Student Name: Michael Lord

Student Number: s2800278
Date: 20/03/2016

Section 1 Design Overview

This investigation involves a voltage driven motor with speed control powered by a standalone
power supply. The AC voltage on the input varies from 50-100mVpeak with a frequency of
50Hz (maximum output current of 1mA). In order to power the motor on the output a DC
voltage which varies linearly with the change of AC input is required. The maximum DC
voltage for the motor is 3V. The circuit will also have an added component which will show
one of four levels the motor is operating in; off, low, medium, or high. The circuit can have no
more than two precision amplifiers and the power supply can only be a 9V battery. The
accuracy of the circuits output error should be less than 2%. The circuit requires a maximum
of 10mA to power the controller circuit. An example of this circuit is a temperature-controlled
fan where a thermocouple acts as the input signal travelling through the circuit to power the
fan. Another application is a slot car track/hobby racing cars whereby the small signal from the
controls can be used to power the slot cars around the track.

Section 2 Block Diagrams

The first step involves taking the 50-100mV signal and amplifying this signal so that it has a
gain large enough to accommodate for the output to be 0-3V. A gain of 30 would suffice in
order to get the 100mV to 3V.
Graph of input AC Signal
100
80

1. Amplifier

60

20
0
-20

2. Filter

-40
-60
-80
-100

10
time (s)

12

14

16

18

20

Graph of input AC Signal

3

3. Buffer
2

Voltage (V)

4. Rectifier
-1

-2

-3

10
time (s)

12

14

16

18

20

5. Filter

Graph of input AC Signal

4
3.8
3.6
3.4

Voltage (V)

Voltage (mV)

40

6. Comparators

3.2
3
2.8

(Level identifier)

2.6
2.4
2.2
2

10
time (s)

12

14

16

18

20

1. The amplifier will amplify the circuit so that it has a gain of 30 which will then produce
a 0-3V sine wave.
2. The op-amp has input offset voltage and therefore an AC coupling circuit is used to
reduce the input offset voltage as it will be amplified in the output. Therefore, a high
pass filter is used in order to cut off the DC component and keep the AC signal.
3. A buffer is then used because the circuit has high input impedance and using the buffer
helps reduce any current loss in the overall circuit.
4. A rectifier is used to convert the signal from AC to DC. A precision rectifier will be
used to eliminate any voltage loss from the diodes (the op-amps eliminate any of these
drops that would be found in a bridge rectifier circuit.)
5. The circuit then needs to be passed through a DC filter in order to translate it from the
|V| to a direct and smooth output.
6. A number of comparators can be used to show the different levels that the motor is
travelling at. For example a comparator can be used for 0.5V, 1.5V and 2.5V to show
when the motors level is low, medium and high.

Section 3 Morphological Analysis

Amplifier Circuit

[1]

The high gain inverting amplifier can give a gain of over 1000. For this experiment a gain of
only 30 will be required and therefore the inverting amplifier will be used.
Filter

A low pass filter is used in order to pass low frequencies. The placement of the filter after the
amplifier is to eliminate the DC from the input offset voltage created by the operational
amplifier. Therefore a high pass filter is used at less than 50 Hz to keep the AC signal and
eliminate the DC component of the operational amplifiers input offset voltage.

Buffer

A buffer is then used because the circuit has high input impedance and using the buffer helps
reduce any current loss in the overall circuit. Therefore a unity gain buffer will be utilised.

Rectifier

[1]
This experiment uses AC-DC conversion which the bridge rectifier and precision rectifier
circuits shown above can achieve. However the bridge rectifier, there will be voltage drop
across the two diodes in each cycle that it conducts. This voltage drop across the diodes is
approximately 1.4V which is not appropriate for the accuracy required in this experiment. The
precision rectifier uses op-amps to compensate for this and does not allow the 1.4V drop
making it most suitable for this experiment.

Filter
Sallen key

[2]

A filter will need to be used in order to smooth out the output which will be a rectified signal.
The normal RC filter cannot be used as the precision rectifiers operational-amplifiers will
not allow the frequencies to be cut-off. The Sallen-key filter will be utilised in this
experiment as it will be more accurate and will easily be manipulated to produce the signal
required without interference from the operational-amplifiers in the precision rectiifer.

Comparator

A number of comparators can be used to show the different levels that the motor is travelling
at. For example a comparator can be used for 0.5V, 1.5V and 2.5V to show when the motor is
low, medium and high. Therefore the circuit given above will be utilised for the comparator.

Section 4 Circuit Diagram

References
[1]C. Hacker, Analog Electronics I, 2013th ed. Griffith University: Griffith University, 2013.
[2] P. Horowitz, W. Hill, and W. H. Horowitz, The art of electronics, 2nd ed. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989.