Electronic Control of Platform with Payload

This article proposes an idea for developing a hardware complex and software for electronic control of a payload platform. As such a load, there can be anything that needs rotating motion, be it a camera, a smartphone, an electronic computing unit, an antenna, and so on. Physically, the system is a rigid tripod on which the platform is located. The rotation of the platform gives a brushless DC motor. The motor is controlled by a special driver, which was previously software and hardware configured. It is important not to forget the power part of the engine control. Generally, the design of the power section begins with the selection of transistors. MOSFETs are best suited for this purpose. When choosing transistors, you need to know the maximum current and the voltage from which the motor is powered. In most cases, the transistors are selected with a power factor of 2-2.4 current. To obtain data on the rotation of the angle of the motor shaft, a rotating transformer connected to a special controller is required. All output from the motor driver and the rotary transformer controller comes to the SoC processor. With it, the user will be able to control the system as a whole. The use of electronic components from electronics giants such as: Texas Instruments and Intel FPGA will increase the reliability of the system during operation. The system is also designed for versatility in operation.

In a simplified form, the principle of operation of the system can be described as follows. The processor sends a signal to the driver that controls the engine. The driver starts the bridge of six field effect transistors in the correct sequence and the motor starts to rotate. The processor sets the rotation speed and direction and passes it to the driver. In turn, the motor is connected to a rotary transformer, which serves to read the angle of rotation of the motor shaft. Data from a rotary transformer that converts sinusoidal signals into electrical voltage is supplied to a specialized microcircuit, which processes them and transfers them to the processor.

The finished system should provide the user with such functionality: the correct start of the brushless DC motor, control of the direction of rotation of the motor, speed control, rotation at a constant speed, centering the platform position during system initialization, the ability to adapt rotation during strong winds.

To increase the functionality of the system, you can add to it a computing unit, which will be a separate board with its own processor. This will allow you to use the device for more complex tasks.