Unit

Course

Mechanical engineering

Study-unit Code

A002392

Curriculum

Energia

Teacher

Riccardo Scorretti

Teachers

Riccardo Scorretti

Hours

72 ore - Riccardo Scorretti

CFU

Course Regulation

Coorte 2024

Offered

2025/26

Learning activities

Affine/integrativa

Area

Attività formative affini o integrative

Academic discipline

ING-IND/31

Type of study-unit

Opzionale (Optional)

Type of learning activities

Attività formativa monodisciplinare

Language of instruction

ITALIAN

Contents

The course provides the basic skills necessary to design electric drive systems. The main contents concern: electrical engineering references, automatic control bases and power electronics. DC, induction, brushless (BLDC and PMSM) and stepper electric motors, and their control.

Reference texts

Recommended texts
1. Slobodan N. Vukosavic, Electrical Machines, Springer DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-0400-2
2. Ned Mohan, Electric Drives – an integrative approach, MNPERE, ISBN 0-9715292-1-3
Teaching material including slides of the lessons, texts and solutions of the proposed exercises, tables, videos and more will be available through the Unistudium platform.

Educational objectives

The course contributes to training the student on the modeling and design of electric drives. It introduces methodological, modeling, design and connection between the various aspects of knowledge.
The main objective of the course is to provide students with the basis for choosing the most suitable type of motor and control, depending on the application.
The main learning outcomes will be:
• Understanding of the physical principles underlying the operation of electric motors;
• Automatic control reminders;
• Power electronics recall;
• Notions on the quality of electrical energy, in particular with regard to the use of inverters for drives;
• Modeling and control of electric motors of various kinds: brushed DC motors, induction and brushless alternating current, stepper motors.

Prerequisites

In order to understand and be able to apply most of the techniques described in the course, solid prior knowledge of electromagnetism and electrical engineering is required. It would help if you had knowledge in automatic controls and electronics.

Teaching methods

The course is organized in:
• lectures in the classroom during which the topics covered in the course are addressed;
• theoretical and practical exercises, to be carried out possibly in the laboratory using Matlab/Simulink and LTspice software.
All the teaching material used during the course – e.g. slides of the lessons, exercises carried out and proposed, tables, videos and other content – will be available through the Unistudium platform.

Other information

Further information is available through the Unistudium page of the course. The teacher is available for consultations at the end of each lesson; consultations with the teacher in person or through the Microsoft Teams platform can also be agreed at other times.

Learning verification modality

The exam consists of two parts:
• a written test (3h)
• an oral test, only for students who pass the written test
• it will be the students' responsibility to follow and obtain the nominative certificate of success of 3 Onramp tutorials (Simulink, Design of automatic control, Simscape power electronics)

Extended program

Introduction.
• Electric drives: an overview. Evolution of technology and abandonment of brushed DC motors. Electrical engineering references: three-phase networks, notion of active, reactive, apparent, distorting power. Because RL loads produce overvoltages.
Brushed DC motors
• Structure and principle of operation. Dynamic model and equivalent circuit. Defluxing.
Automatic Control Recalls
• Basics of automatic controls: Laplace transforms, frequency response and transfer function, Bode diagrams.
• First and second order systems, and their identification starting from the response to the step.
• PID controllers, design of controllers in the time and frequency domain, direct synthesis. Anti-wind up.
• Stability of linear systems: phase and gain margin.
Power electronics
• Notes on semiconductors, and on semiconductor devices for power electronics: diodes, BJT, MOSFETS, IGBT and thyristors, modules composed of several power devices.
• DC-DC converters with Buck, Boost and Buck-Boost topologies and their transfer function (hints). Integrated controllers, regulators and integrated power modules.
• Half deck, full deck, three phase deck. Chopper. Regenerative braking, common DC-bus and DC bus protection.
• Inverters: applications and type, notion of THD and quality of electricity.
• Square wave, PWM and SVPWM type modulation.
Electric motor control
• Why imbricated loops are used (torque/current, speed and position control)
• DC Motor Control Design
• Position and speed measurement by encoder.
Induction Motor
• Structure and principle of operation. Steady state model and equivalent circuit per phase.
• Starting induction motors: direct connection, soft-starter or inverter.
• Scalar control (V/f), because the V/f control does not allow you to control transients.
• Dynamic model: Clarke-Park transformation, equations of the engine in the Park reference. Torque calculation. Notes on the different types of FOC and DTC vector control
Motori brushless
• Structure and principle of operation. BLDC and PMSM motors.
• Dynamic model of brushless motors, motor equations in Park reference.
• FOC control, 6 steps. Notes on sensorless control.
• Integrated circuits for the control of brushless motors.
Stepper motors
• Structure and operating principle, types of stepper motors (single-pole, bipolar and hybrid)
• Control of stepper motors, microstepping.
• Integrated circuits for the control of stepper motors.
Model-based design
• Approcci model-in-the-loop (MIL), software-in-the-loop (SIL) e hardware-in-the-loop (HIL).
• Simulink and SImscape Basics
• Automatic code generation for embedded platforms
• Practical exercises with Arduino.

Obiettivi Agenda 2030 per lo sviluppo sostenibile

• Goal 4: Quality education
• Goal 9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure