Report and Demo Due Dates:

Objectives:

• To gain experience interfacing a microcomputer to a stepper motor.
• To gain experience programming the Motorola Time Processor Unit (TPU) in both SM and DIO mode.
• To gain experience with html forms and web-based input methods.
• To gain experience reading manufacturer's documentation and providing solutions based on that documentation.

Equipment, Parts and Provided Software:

Documentation:

Background:

Microcomputers are sometimes used to control rotating mechanisms, such as shafts and axles as well as attached pulleys, gears and/or wheels. A stepper motor is a motor whose rotor position can be controlled precisely by switching direct current (DC) voltages to two or more stator windings. Each winding can be energized in the forward direction, energized in the reverse direction, or not energized at all. Such a motor is convenient to control using a microcomputer since only buffered digital H-bridge input signals are required. Motorola's Time Processor Unit (TPU) is a programmable sub-system in the MC68332 microcontroller that has built-in functions that greatly simplify the generation of the digital waveforms that are required to control a stepper motor.

The stator windings in a stepper motor must be energized in the correct direction and in the correct sequence in order to produce controlled rotation of the rotor. The first six steps in the full-step sequence are given in the table below, which assumes the use of the L298 dual H-bridge driver IC. Note that the provided TPU driver controls the L298 enable inputs EnA and EnB using TPU timer channel 12 and 13 , and drives L298 inputs IN1, IN2, IN3 and IN4 using TPU timer channels 8, 9, 10 and 11, respectively, with the built-in stepper motor function. Each step in the full-step sequence advances the rotor of the Jameco motor by 3.6 degrees; thus 100 steps advance the rotor through one full revolution. Each step in the half-step sequence advances the rotor by 1.8 degrees. 200 steps are required for a complete revolution in half-step mode.

Note that in the full-step sequence, the total current drawn by the motor from the DC power supply is roughly the same in every step position. If one relaxes this constant-current restriction, then one can double the resolution of the rotor positioning by using the half-step sequence, which is shown in the table below. The additional cost of the half-step sequence is that the control waveforms are slightly more complicated and the total drawn current becomes position-dependant. In the case of the laboratory set-up, the two L298 enable inputs (EnA and EnB) are controlled separately using two different TPU timing channels. Thus the recommended hardware configuration assumes that EnA and EnB channels are properly disabled whenever the winding current is supposed to be off.

The stepper motor that you will be controlling in this set of laboratory exercises will be operated in open loop mode. By this we mean that the microcomputer sends out digital signals to the stepper motor and assumes that the rotor will always rotate through precisely the correct number of steps. The microcomputer lacks the feedback means to verify the actual position of the rotor before and after each step command. Open loop operation is more risky in the sense that the microcomputer cannot verify that it does indeed have accurate control over the rotor's position. The rotor position may in fact deviate from the expected position if, for example, the limited torque of the motor is unable to rotate the loaded shaft fast enough to keep up with the stepping commands. A better alternative to open loop operation would be to operate in closed loop mode. To do this one would need to provide feedback through a shaft encoder sensor that would allow the microcomputer to independently verify the actual position of the rotor. But we will not be using feedback in this lab. Instead you will initially set the rotor pointer to the "12 o'clock" position, which the TPU driver software will then associate with step number $7FFF, which is the middle position in the full range of 16-bit unsigned positions.

The stepper motor module also contains three buttons and three LEDS. The three LEDS have been included to provided status information about the motor. The buttons will act as inputs and can control the rotation of the motor.

Debouncing switches and buttons, while conceptually simple, is typically a non-trivial problem. Switches and buttons do not act in an ideal way. Overshooot and undershoot result from pressing on the switch or button. This non-ideal behaviour makes it more difficult to process button presses in digital systems.

Pre-lab Work:

1. Outline the requirements for initializing the TPU channels with LEDS (channels 0-2) to output mode and the method used to set the value on the pin to high or low. The LEDS should operate in Discrete IO mode with no interrupts. Consult the references above for information on the Discrete IO function of the TPU.(5 pts)
2. Provide a flowchart (or pseudocode) for your solution to exercise 3. Include the web portion, the StepCommandTask portion and the LED portion.(5 pts)

Exercise #1: Verify Initial Build and Hardware Setup

• Download the lab4 tar file and place it into your cmpe401 directory. Untar it by typing

  tar xvf lab4.tar

• Change into the newly untarred lab4 directory and type

  make

• Remove power from the board and turn output off on the Instek power supplies before connecting anything.
• Connect 12 V from Channel 1 of the Instek supplies to the top red connector labeled 12 V on the Stepper Motor module.
• Connect 5 V from the fixed 5 V supply of the Instek supplies to the middle red connector labeled 5 V on the stepper motor module.
• Connect the ground from either the 5 V or the 12 V supplies of the Instek power supplies and connect the grounds of the 5 V and 12 V channels together.
• Connect the stepper motor to the stepper motor module in the correct direction. The stepper motor module has a four pin header marked with WGRB. This refers to the colours on the cable connected to the motor. Orient the four pin connector based on the wire colour in the cable.
• Power on the board.
• Push the output button on the power supply to provide power to the stepper motor module.
• Grasp the spindle of the motor and orient the shaft so that the dot is placed in the 12 o'clock position. Originally all of the motors had pointers connected to the spindles but many of them have fallen off. Don't be concerned by that.
• Use the normal download procedure to download the lab4.s19 to the board and run it by typing

  go 10000

• This initial build will test your hardware setup. The specifications for this initial build are as follows:
  1. Stepping the stepper motor using polling
  2. Half-Step Mode
  3. 14 Step Rates
  4. Min 25 steps/sec, Max 200 steps/sec
• The PollingMotorTask will rotate the motor continually using a consistently repeating pattern of one rotation clockwise,and one rotation counterclockwise. Ten rotations will occur before the Task calls OSTimeDly with a delay of five seconds.
• If the motor is not rotating or the red light indicating power-supply overload is illuminated on the Instek power supplies, turn the power to the motor off immediately. Damage to the power supplies or the 68332-based boards may result if you don't take prompt action to turn off the power to the motor during improper operation. This lab is the most dangerous in terms of equipment destruction. Please be aware of the danger signs.

Exercise #2: Motor Control Using Interrupts

• Comment out the line of code that creates the PollingMotorTask and uncomment the line that creates the InterruptMotorTask. Note the similarities and differences between the PollingMotorTask and the InterruptMotorTask.
• Create the code that turns each of the LEDS on and off. You will need to program the TPU channels in Discrete IO mode. Place this code in tpu.s at the idicated place.
• When the motor is stopped the red LED should be on. When the motor is rotating in a clockwise direction the green LED should be on. When the motor is rotating in the counter-clockwise direction the yellow LED should be on.
• Create the code for the Channel 8 Interrupt that posts to the StepSem semaphore to signal to the InterruptMotorTask that the previously requested step request has completed. You must also signal to the TPU that you have cleared the interrupt on this channel. Place this code in the tpu.s file in the indicated place.

Exercise #3: Motor Control Using Input From a Web-based Form

To see the TCP/IP traffic going over the sl0 interface, use the capture_serial script from lab #3 and Wireshark.

In addition to the rotation of the motor, the red LED should be lit up when the motor is off. The yellow LED should be lit up during the rotation of the motor in the counterclockwise direction.The green LED should be lit up during the rotation of the motor in the clockwise direction.

• Comment out the line creating the InterruptMotorTask and uncomment the line creating the StepCommandTask.
• Uncomment the HostUp line in the StartTask to bring up your httpd server.
• Create the code that determines the number of steps and the direction returned from the POST reuest. Pass these values to the StepCommandTask using the existing StepCommandQueue. In this lab the type passed throught the queue can be anything you prefer as long as the operation succeeds in turning the motor the required number of steps and in the right direction.
• Insert your code to turn the motor and turn on the LEDS accordingly in the StepCommandTask. The LEDs turned on should be the same patterns as in exercise 2: stopped is red, clockwise is green and counter-clockwise is yellow. Use the InterruptMotorTask as your guide.

Report Requirements:

• Briefly describe the stepper motor board hardware and its interface to the NMIX 332.
• Summarize the complete initialization required to operate TPU channels 8-13 in SM mode, and TPU channels 0-2 in DIO mode, if you did not provide an initialization summary in your design section for exercise 2 and 3. Pseudocode or a flow chart is acceptable.
• Your typed report is to briefly describe your design solution for the two laboratory exercises.
• Be sure to provide neatly formatted and well commented code for the two exercises. Include any code that you inserted or modified. Do not include the code you were explicitly instructed to modify unless you modified it in a different way.
• Briefly describe your test cases for verifying that each of your solutions was working properly. Describe which cases were tested, as well as the anticipated and actual results for each test case and place these test cases in a table.

Marking Scheme:

Last modified November 16, 2007