A brushless DC motor is a synchronous motor that finds numerous applications in motion control.

Appliance, automotive, aerospace, industrial automation, automation are few industries to list. These come with different torque and voltage ratings. A BLDC motor has windings on stator and alternate permanent magnets on rotor. BLDC motors are electronically commutated based on the rotor position with respect to the stator winding. This means, to run a BLDC motor an electronic drive is required. Normally 3 Hall effect sensors mounted on the stator are used to determine the rotor position. The Hall effect sensors give a combination of high and low signals when they pass next to the rotor poles. With this combination, the commutation sequence is determined. A typical control circuit with 3 phase winding connection is shown in the Fig. 1 H1, H2, H3 and L1, L2, L3 make 3 phase voltage source inverter connected across the power supply indicated by VDC+ and VDC-. Stator windings A, B and C are connected in star to the inverter.

With 3 Hall sensors on the motor, every 60 degrees of electrical cycle, a Hall sensor makes transition either from low to high or from high to low. With this every electrical cycle has 6 steps to complete one full cycle. The energizing sequence will have 6 combinations of turning ON and Off of the 6 switches that we saw in the previous slide. A typical switching sequence is shown on the table here. The Hall sensor inputs are at 120 degrees phase shift to each other. Every sequence has two windings connected across the power supply and third winding left open. Considering the first step where the Hall sensor input is 101, Phase C is connected to positive DC bus and phase B is connected to negative DC bus and phase A is left open. In order to achieve this switch H3 and L2 should be closed and all other switches should be open. This will turn the rotor by 60 degree electrical in the given direction. This will make the Hall sensor to make another transition triggering the next point on the sequence table and so on.

The electrical cycle and shaft rotation have a definite relation. The electrical cycle repeats with every rotor pole pairs. So to complete one rotation on the shaft, these 6 steps should be repeated as many times as rotor pole pairs. If the sequence is followed with rated motor voltage across the motor windings, motor will run at rated speed. Speed can be controlled using PWMs, by PWMing each switch according to the speed required. The phase current waveform looks trapezoidal in shape with each phase current having 120 degrees phase shift to each other.