Advanced 8-bit motor microcontrollers such as the XC878/886/888 MCUs of the XC800 family from Infineon provide powerful field oriented control (FOC) for complex and very efficient motor control applications. This advanced motor control technique improves consumer and industrial drives addressing higher efficiency, better dynamic response and reduced audible noise. Application kits and powerful tools support the fast and easy implementation of the new motor control techniques. Using automation code generator designers get a customized code reflecting choice of motor, speed and various control options for highly efficient motor control designs with a few mouse clicks only.
According to a study from Energy Information Administration (EIA), a third of the worldwide energy consumption is accounted for by electric energy, which amounted to about 16.4 million Giga watt hours in the year 2004. The forecast is for this figure to double until 2030. One of the major energy reduction measures is using electronics in inverters which could gain savings of 30-40% in motor control applications. By adopting variable speed drives using advanced control techniques like FOC, worldwide consumption of electricity could be lowered by over 20%. Advanced control schemes like FOC allow manufacturers to reduce the size of the motor required, yielding higher efficiency, better dynamic response and lower torque ripple. The benefits offered by FOC in combination with a cost effective 8-bit MCU makes this solution suitable for motor control developers seeking ways to meet energy regulations and contain pricing pressure. The new generation of automatic code generator offers benefits such as shorter time-to-market, and paves the way to sophisticated and power efficient motor control designs.
The 8-bit MCUs of the XC800 family offer scalable solutions for different types of motor control methods ranging from block commutation, FOC and both FOC and PFC (power factor control) for complex motor drives. FOC is a technique for operating electric motors that results in smooth and energy-efficient operation at all speeds, is increasingly being adopted for consumer and industrial motor control. Achieving this efficient method of control with a low-cost but highly optimized 8-bit microcontroller redefines the economic models for developers of appliances and other motor-controlled products such as fans, pumps and compressors.
FOC is currently implemented on the 8-bit XC886, XC888 and XC878 MCUs by combining an 8051 core and a "vector computer", which performs 16-bit arithmetic operations. This vector computer is built by two parallel operating units: the MDU, a 16-bit multiply and divide unit, and the CORDIC, a 16-bit coprocessor dedicated for vector rotation and angular calculations. Unlike most competitive FOC implementations that are hard-coded, solutions based on the XC800 8-bit microcontrollers offer the added benefit of software reprogrammability which gives developers more versatile application options.
FOC allows the efficiency of an electrical motor to be increased by up to 95%, offering less power consumption, less noise and excellent torque dynamics. To drive the implementation and execution of FOC an optimized microcontroller architecture and easy-to-use tools to reduce time to market are the prerequisites.
Application focused systems are very helpful when an engineer has been tasked with expanding a company's design capabilities. For example, a company that produces electronic controls for brushed DC motors may need to move to more efficient brushless DC (BLDC) motors quickly for some newer product lines. The best solution for rapid development and demonstration would be to find a system that is easy to use, self-contained, includes an IDE and application software and also provides fairly extensive documentation.
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