Microcontroller-Based Motion Control for DC Motor Driven Robot Link

This paper presents the design and implementation of a controller for a robot link which is driven by a brushed DC motor and a quadrature encoder. DC motor driven a robot link with an encoder is a challenge for small and micro robotic systems, experimentally accurate measures of encoder resolution, position and speed are necessary parameters while they are not easily achieved. The proposed work is an empirical study of two control technique: i) open-loop control and ii) feedback/closed-loop control. Both control techniques have been implemented using programmable system on chip microcontroller. The algorithms have been compared in term of speed, stability and accuracy. Results show that these algorithms can be implemented in small-scale robots effectively.