Motor Controller for a Robot Arm
Design a closed-loop brushed DC motor controller for a small robotics application.
Requirements:
- Drive one bidirectional brushed DC motor, up to 2 A continuous motor current
- Use an H-bridge motor driver or discrete H-bridge solution appropriate for PWM control and bidirectional operation
- Support quadrature encoder feedback for speed and position control
- Include encoder input signal conditioning as needed, such as pull-ups, filtering, ESD protection, or level shifting
- Use a microcontroller capable of reading quadrature encoder signals, generating PWM, measuring current, and running a PID control loop
- Include motor current sensing for monitoring and overcurrent protection
- Provide appropriate power input, motor output connector, encoder connector, programming/debug access, and status indicators
- Include protection for motor-drive transients, reverse polarity, overcurrent, and ESD where appropriate
Make reasonable engineering choices for the motor supply voltage, MCU, motor driver, current-sense method, connectors, protection devices, and control interface. Prioritize a robust robotics-ready design with good observability and safe fault handling rather than the lowest-cost implementation.
Complete and verify the schematic first. Consult the datasheets for the motor driver, MCU, and current-sense components; include required decoupling, bootstrap/charge-pump parts if needed, sense filtering, encoder conditioning, and thermal/current-rating checks.
Thought for 2 sec
I’ll build the schematic for a robust 2 A bidirectional brushed DC motor controller: select datasheet-backed parts, add power/protection/MCU/driver/current-sense/encoder/debug/status circuits, then run ERC and fix issues before summarizing.
Worked for 3 mins
Part selection is complete: I’m using a
Worked for 20 sec
Created the persistent project files: Project Specification and Design Notes. Now I’m adding the schematic blocks.
