Abstract
| The paper presents a hardware solution for the digital control of a multi-motor drive system using a very high level programming language and a single microcontroller. It follows a previous one for developing the software design. These two papers are related because each side (hardware / software) is interrelated and linked to each other. The hardware platform as well as the results recorded during on-line tests by means of a logic analyzer are presented and analyzed. The purpose of the research is the simultaneous control of several motor units with their own motion parameters using a fast design cycle for the software support and a minimal hardware configuration. The main contribution refers to a software / hardware solution for obtaining independent / parallel control of the time delays for several channels. The programming environment is Flowcode 5. As hardware, a modular platform based on a PIC microcontroller is used. The application implements a simultaneous control of 2 different steppers and 2 different DC motors, each of them with different adjustable speed and its own motion direction. Another contribution is apractical tool for revealing the entire on-line timing by recording all real-time tasks. The obtained results are useful both for a qualitative check as well as for precise quantitative evaluations, inserted examples being illustrative. |
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