Control Systems

ME-314
Electromechanical System Transfer Functions
Dr. Jawad Aslam
 Electromechanical Systems
• Hybrid of electrical and mechanical variables
• Example: our first case study of azimuth position
control, robot controls, …
• Motor is the most obvious electromechanical
component with input voltage (electrical input)
and displacement (mechanical output) as output
 Transfer Function of DC Servo Motor

DC motor schematic Block Diagram

• Fixed field: a magnetic field developed by stationary

permanent magnet
• Armature Circuit: It is a rotating circuit (also known
as armature) through which current ia(t) passes.
• Principle: Whenever a current carrying conductor is
placed in a magnetic field it experiences a force in a
particular direction determined by Flemings left hand
rule.
Transfer Function of DC Servo Motor

B is the magnetic field, l is the length of conductor.

 Electromotive Force in Motors
• Faradays Law: A changing magnetic field induces an emf in
a coil. The change in magnetic field could be due to magnet
towards or away from the coil. Changing flux induces emf.
• Lenz’s Law: when an emf is generated by a change
in magnetic flux according to Faraday's Law, the polarity of
the induced emf is such, that it produces a current whose
magnetic field opposes the change which produces it.
• A conductor moving at right angles to magnetic field
produces voltages at the terminal of the conductor also
known as back emf.

• Where e is the voltage, B is magnetic field, L is the length of

conductor and v is the velocity of conductor normal to
magnetic field.
 Transfer Function of DC Servo Motor
• The current carrying armature rotates in the
magnetic field. The induced voltage is therefore
proportional to angular velocity.
Laplace
Transform
• Vb(t) is back emf, Kb is back emf constant and
differential term is clearly motor’s angular velocity
• Writing the equation of armature circuit
 Transfer Function of DC Servo Motor
• Torque and current relationship of motor is given
as:
• Where Tm is the torque developed by motor, Kt is
motor torque constant
• To find transfer function, make the following
substitutions
 Transfer Function of DC Servo Motor
• To obtain transfer function θm(s)/Ea(s), we first
find Tm(s) in terms of θm(s)

• For this, we look at the typical mechanical

loading, with Jm representing equivalent inertia at
the armature and load inertia reflected to the
armature. Dm represents the armature viscous
damping and load viscous damping reflected to
the armature
Transfer Function of DC Servo Motor

How to determine the constants Jm, Dm, Kt, …etc?

 Motor Constants
• First lets determine Jm and Dm

Dc motor with inertia Ja and damping Da driving a

load with inertia JL and damping DL. Equivalent
inertia Jm and damping Dm can be found by
reflecting the load inertia and load damping to
armature and added to Ja and Da as follows:
 Motor Constants
• Now, lets determine the electrical constants

• For this we use dynamometer test. Dynamometer is

used to measure torque and speed of motor while
keeping input voltage constant.
• With La=0, make the following substitution
 Motor Constants
Inverse Laplace
Transform

Dropping the time

notation, since angular
velocity remains constant
for a dc voltage input

Rearranging for Tm

Stall Torque Tstall To get Kt/Ra

i.e. when wm=0

No load speed wno- To get Kb

load i.e. when Tm=0
 Motor Constant
• Torque-speed curve
 Example
• Find the transfer function θL(s)/Ea(s)

• First find mechanical constants Jm and Dm i.e. the

total inertia and damping at the armature of the
motor
 Example
• Find the transfer function θL(s)/Ea(s)

• Now we find the electrical constants Kt/Ra and Kb.

Using torque speed curve
 Example
• Find the transfer function θL(s)/Ea(s)

• Now we know all the constants, lets use our

previous result to get the transfer function
 Example
• Find the transfer function θL(s)/Ea(s)

• But we need θL(s)/Ea(s) NOT θm(s)/Ea(s). We use

gear ratio N1/N2=10
 Administrative
• OHT-1 return and discussion
• Project teams
 Electric Circuit Analogs
• Can we produce electric circuits equivalent to
mechanical systems?
• This helps to solve mechanical systems by
converting them into electrical circuits,
another problem solving approach.
• Analog Circuits can be obtained by comparing
equation of motion of a mechanical system
with electrical mesh (series analog) or nodal
equations (parallel analog).
 Example: Series Analog

Not Analogous

Multiply and divide left side by s

 Example: Parallel Analog

Not Analogous

Multiply and divide by s

Reading Assignment: example 2.24 and 2.25