Stepper Motor Control Using CPLD-A Review

Stepper motor is basically a DC motor which has a wide application in controlling the movement, rotation or motion of any system. As it is clear from the name stepper, so it moves or rotates in steps at a particular angle which is set during the manufacturing of the motor according to the need. It more precisely control the movement of a system which depends upon the time, speed, direction etc. Initially PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers) are used for controlling the movement of stepper motor but many problems are there while dealing with PLCs such as control of movement or rotation of motor is difficult because of the complex system and also the language of the software in case of PLCs is not user friendly. These limitations of PLCs can be overcome by the use of CPLD (Complex Programmable Logic Device). CPLD has its own advantages in comparison to PLCs, Microprocessor or Microcontrollers such as the design can be modify very easily and fastly. Thus, with the use of CPLD, the rotation of stepper motor can be controlled with much precise and accuracy which cannot be achieved with the use of DSP, Microprocessor or Microcontrollers. With certain advancement in the technology of CPLD in future, it will become easier to number of computation in CPLD and FPGA (Field Programmable Gate Array). Thus, with the help of CPLD, the controlling of stepper motor becomes easier. CPLD is able to understand different languages used by the software and can perform different computation more precisely and effectively. In this paper different CPLD based techniques are summarized along with their limitations and future challenges. Keywords: CPLD, FPGA, VHDL