Building a three-phase PMSM sensorless FOC with Atmel

A three-phase Permanent Magnet Synchronous Motor (PMSM) sensorless FOC (Field Oriented Control) is typically found in a number of home appliances such as washing machines, dishwashers, dryers, refrigerators, air conditioners and pumps.

Key design considerations for a three-phase PMSM sensorless FOC include power efficient and acoustically quiet motor operation to meet governmental efficiency standards, low BOM cost and a compact, scalable FOC form factor.

“And that is precisely why Atmel’s XMEGA AVR (D or E series), coupled with our AVR1636 reference design, offers developers versatile integration capabilities along with comprehensive application support – facilitating FOC implementation that allows power efficient and acoustically quiet motor control application,” an Atmel engineering rep told Bits & Pieces.

“More specifically, there are three 16-bit timer/counters with up to four output compare or input capture channels, a high-resolution extension and advanced waveform extension (AWeX), an 8-channel Event System which allows peripherals to directly send, receive and react to synchronous or asynchronous events in a short, guaranteed response time.”

Additional integrated features include a feature-rich 300KS/s 12bit ADC with programmable gain amplifier up to 64x – with temperature, supply voltage and reference inputs; EEPROM for configuration parameters storage; two USART, one SPI and one I2C Serial Interfaces for system communication.

In terms of software and application support, Atmel offers AVR1636 reference design hardware; a firmware and PC configuration utility; AVR1610 pre-certified Class B library and design guide; Atmel Studio 6; Atmel Software Framework; Atmel Gallery; and free software libraries of production-ready source code.

Interested in learning more about building a three-phase PMSM sensorless FOC with Atmel’s AVR XMEGA? Be sure to check out some of the links below.

• Atmel ATXMEGA AVR Microcontroller Home Page
• Atmel AVR1636 Configurable Three Phase PMSM FOC Application Note
• Atmel AVR1610 Guide to IEC 60730 Class B Compliance with XMEGA
• Atmel Studio 6 Home Page
• Atmel Software Framework Home Page

A PIR motion activated camera with Atmel & ARM

A PIR motion activated camera is typically deployed as a security measure to detect, record and identify an unauthorized intruder. Key design considerations of such a device include false alarm immunity, extended battery life, low BOM cost and small form factor.

A number of Atmel-based components can be used to build a PIR motion activated camera that follows the above-mentioned design requirements. Firstly, Atmel’s ARM-based (Cortex-M4) SAM4S16 is capable of achieving fast image capture along with compression, all while transferring the data back to the control center – thereby facilitating rapid visual verification and response.

“Perhaps most importantly, Atmel’s SAM4S16 offers low power operation to extend battery life, with embedded peripherals running independently from the CPU,” an Atmel engineering rep told Bits & Pieces.

“So that means PIR sensing and image capturing without CPU load. More specifically, single snapshot mode =>30uA/day -10 years of battery life (3V, 2800mAh Li-Ion).”

Similarly, Atmel’s 86RF212B/233RF transceiver offers low-power operation with Sleep Mode down to 0.02uA.

“Developers can also save on total BOM cost and reduce design form factor, as Atmel’s SAM4S16 is capable of independently handling image encoding and processing with software,” the engineering rep continued.  “In addition, the Atmel-based design (SAM4S16) allows the removal of one external amplifier interfacing PIR Sensor via the embedded ADC with gain stage. Plus, the SAM4S16 directly connects to any CMOSImageSensor, all while providing color picture capture at QVGA resolution.”

On the software side, developers have easy access to the SAM4S evaluation kit (Xplained Pro), along with Atmel Studio, Gallery and free libraries, including FreeRTOS, TCP/IP Stacks and 802.15.4 Stacks.

Interested in learning more about Atmel’s ARM-powered SAM4S16? Be sure to check out the official SAM4S16 page here.

New Hardware Kits for Evaluating and Prototyping with Flash Microcontrollers

You now have a new tool available to evaluate, prototype and develop with Atmel® Flash microcontrollers. The new Atmel Xplained Pro hardware kits are easy to use, extensible and low in cost. With an Xplained Pro kit it only takes minutes to run your first program on the microcontroller. Just connect the kit to your PC with a USB cable and the Atmel Studio 6.1 integrated development platform immediately recognizes the boards. , Click a button to program the MCU with a ready-made application example based on Atmel Software Framework and you are set to execute and single step through the first lines of C code.

Need additional software tools?  Just download extensions for the Studio 6 IDP from the Atmel Gallery online apps store.

Need additional hardware?  The Xplained Pro boards are standardized designs of microcontroller boards, with extension boards providing additional capabilities like displays or breadboarding. With this combination, you can create a system to evaluate new Atmel AVR® and ARM® processor-based devices in the context of your targeted applications.

The following boards are now available:

• SAM4L Xplained Pro
  • Cortex-M4 based Atmel SAM4L4 MCU with 256kB Flash
  • SAM4S Xplained Pro
    • Cortex-M4 based Atmel SAM4SD32 MCU with 2MB Flash
    • ATMEGA256RFR2 Xplained Pro
      • With AVR based ATMEGA256RFR2 MCU WITH LOW POWER 2.4GHZ TRANSCEIVER FOR IEEE 802.15.4
      • Segment LCD1 Xplained Pro extension board
      • OLED1 Xplained Pro extension board
      • IO1 Xplained Pro extension board
      • PROTO1 Xplained Pro extension board

These boards are available in the following kits:

• Evaluation kits, providing the MCU boards, priced at $39
• Starter kits, providing a bundle of a MCU board and extension boards, priced at $99 and up
• Extension kits, providing single extension boards

You can buy Xplained Pro kits through your Atmel distributor or online at store.atmel.com.

When you want to decide if the Atmel MCU is the right fit for your design, Xplained Pro kits are the fastest and easiest way for evaluation, prototyping and development.