ME 114

Vibrations and Controls

Final Project Problem 2-43

By:

Manuel Leija
Problem 2-43:
The motor whose torque-speed characteristics are shown in figure 1 drives the
load shown in the diagram. Some of the gears have inertia. Find the transfer function,
G(s) = θ2(s)/Ea(s). Also run the test signals on the transfer function and run the control
techniques.

Objective:
Mathematical techniques and equations for electromechanical systems will be
applied to determine the transfer function, G(s) = θ2(s)/Ea(s). Matlab will be used to plot
the step response, impulse response, root locus and Bode diagram for the
electromechanical system. All numerical values and the system itself can be found in
figure 1.

Figure 1

Solution:
In order to find the transfer function of this system we need to convert the system
in figure 1 to an equivalent electromechanical system without the gears as shown in
figure 2. This equivalent system will act exactly like the previous system as long as the
gear ratios are calculated into the equivalent impedances (inertia, dampers, etc…).
 Figure 2

The first thing to do is find the current going through the motor. See figure 3 for the
motor current and electrical system.

Figure 3

The voltage is proportional to the speed and is represented as,

dq m (t )
vb (t ) = K b ( 1)
dt

Kb is a constant of proportionality called the back emf constant. However, if we take the
Laplace transform we get,

Vb ( s ) = K b sq m ( s ) ( 2)

Using a loop equation around the Laplace transformed armature circuit we get,

Ra I a ( s ) + La sI a ( s ) + Vb ( s ) = Ea ( s ) ( 3)
The torque developed by the motor is proportional to the armature current, thus,

Tm ( s ) = K t I a ( s ) ( 4)
Kt is a constant of proportionality called the motor torque constant. Rearranging equation
(5) in terms of the current Ia(s) gives,

1
Ia ( s ) = Tm ( s ) ( 5)
Kt

Finding the transfer function of the motor we need to substitute equations (2) and (5) into
equation (3) and then we will get,

( Ra + La s ) Tm ( s ) + K sq
b m ( s ) = Ea ( s ) ( 6)
Kt

Now looking at the mechanical system in figure 2 we can say,

Tm ( s ) = ( J m s 2 + Dm s ) q m ( s ) ( 7)

Now substitute equation (7) into equation (6) and it will yield,

( Ra + La s ) ( J m s 2 + Dm s ) q m ( s )
+ K b sq m ( s ) = Ea ( s ) ( 8)
Kt

If we assume that the armature inductance, La, is small compared to the armature
resistance, Ra, which is usual for a dc motor, we now yield,

�Ra �
� ( J m s + Dm ) + K b �sq m ( s ) = Ea ( s ) ( 9)
2

�K t �

Now after some simplification the desired transfer function, θm(s)/Ea(s), is found to be,

Kt
qm ( s ) ( Ra J m )
= ( 10 )
Ea ( s ) � 1 � �
Kt Kb �
s+
s� �Dm + �
�
� Jm � Ra � �

Equation (10) is the basic transfer function equation for figure 1 and is only the beginning
to the solution of our problem.
For our problem we were also given a Torque-Speed plot which is also shown in figure 1.
We need to apply this diagram to the basic transfer function equation in order to get the
transfer function for our problem. The first thing we need to do is make equivalent
inertias and dampers using the gear train. Rotational mechanical impedances can be
reflected through gear trains by multiplying the mechanical impedance by the ratio,

2
�Number of teeth of gear on destination shaft �
� �
� Number of teeth of gear on source shaft �

Therefore for our electromechanical system, the equivalent impedance for inertia is,

2 2
�N � �N N �
J m = J1 + ( J 2 + J 3 ) � 1 �+ J 4 � 1 3 � ( 11)
�N 2 � �N 2 N 4 �

The J’s represents the individual inertias and the N’s are each gear in the gear train.
Repeating this procedure for the dampers will yield,

2
�N N �
Dm = D � 1 3 � ( 12 )
�N 2 N 4 �

Now that we have evaluated the mechanical constants, Jm and Dm, we can make equations
for the electrical constants in the transfer function. We can refer back to equation (8) and
set La = 0, then take the inverse Laplace transform, we will get,

Ra
Tm ( t ) + Kbwm ( t ) = ea ( t ) ( 13)
Kt

Note that the inverse Laplace transform of sθm(s) is dθm(t)/dt, or alternately, ωm(t). Since
we know that as the motor turns at a constant angular velocity, ωm, there will also be a
constant torque, Tm, we can drop the functional relationship based on time and solve for
Tm to yield,

Kb Kt K
Tm = - wm + t ea ( 14 )
Ra Ra

Equation (14) is a straight line, Tm v. ωm, and is shown as the Torque-Speed curve shown
in figure 1. When there is no angular velocity, the intercept on the Torque axis is called
the stall torque, Tstall and is written as,

Kt
Tstall = ea ( 15)
Ra
Similarly, if there is no torque then the intercept on the speed axis is the no-load speed,
ωno-load and is represented as,

ea
wno -load = ( 16 )
Kb

The electrical constants of the motor’s transfer function can now be found from equations
(15) and (16) and are,

K t Tstall
= ( 17 )
Ra ea

And

ea
Kb = ( 18 )
wno -load

We now finally have all the pieces we need to get the transfer function for our
electromechanical system. Putting equations (17) and (18) into equation (10) and
performing some algebraic cancellation, the transfer function becomes,

Tstall �N1 N 3 �
� �
q2 ( s ) ea J m �N 2 N 4 �
G ( s) = = ( 19 )
ea ( s ) � 1 � Tstall � �
s+
s� �Dm + �
�
� Jm � wno -load �
�

Note that without the gear ratios the transfer function will have only been a function of
θm(s)/ea(s), which is not the desired transfer function that we wanted for this problem.
Now we can finalize the result by putting in the appropriate values from the system
diagram and the Torque-Speed curve both from figure 1.

2
�10 � �( 10 ) ( 10 )
2
�
J m = 1 + ( 4 ) � �+ 16 �
�20 � �( 20 ) ( 20 ) �= 3
�
� �
2
�( 10 ) ( 10 ) �
Dm = 32 � �( 20 ) ( 20 ) �= 2
�
� �
Tstall = 5 ( N - m )
600 rad
wno -load = RPM = 20
p s
Putting these values into our rotational electromechanical system gives the following
transfer function,

( 5) ( 10 ) ( 10 ) 1
q ( s) ( 5 ) ( 3) ( 20 ) ( 20 ) 12
G ( s) = s = = ( 20 )
ea ( s ) � 1� 5 � � � 3�
s+ �
s� 2+ �� s+ �
s�
� 3 � 20 �
� � 4�

Although this entire procedure was developed for the rotational electromechanical
system, it can be used for other electromechanical systems as well. As long as the Torque-
Speed plot can be easily calculated then this information along with the information of all
the components (inertias, gear teeth, dampers, etc…) can be directly substituted into
equation (19) to get the transfer function of the system.

Now that we have the transfer function we can use this to do the second part of the
problem. Figure 4 is the Matlab file that was used to create the transfer function and plot
the test signals and control techniques. This file will also be provided for better clarity.

Figure 4
Line 10 and line 13 assigns the numeric values we found in equation (20) to a numerator
and a denominator. Line 16 takes these assigned values and makes the transfer function
based on these values. Lines 18-28 plots the step response, the impulse response, the root
locus, and the Bode diagram and assigns each plot to their respective figures. Finally line
29 uses the Sisotool command to bring up the GUI interface. Figure 5 is the step
response plot.

Figure 5

As it is shown the current peak amplitude is 1.52 at a time of 15 seconds and greater and
it doesn’t have a settling time or a rise time. Since there is no settling time the steady
state value is infinity. Figure 6 is the impulse response for our system.
 Figure 6

This response has only two characteristics, peak response and settling time. As the plot
indicates the peak amplitude is .111 at a time of 15 seconds and greater. The settling time
is 5.22 seconds. In other words it takes 5.22 seconds for the system to get within 2% of
the peak amplitude of .111. Figure 7 is the root locus plot.
 Figure 7

This is the root locus plot where the horizontal axis is the real axis and the vertical axis is
the imaginary axis. Since the plot is only on the left side of the imaginary axis, this
means that the system is stable. The poles of the system are at zero and -.75. Comparing
this to the transfer function, it can be seen that this is the correct location for the poles.
Figure 8 is the Bode diagram plot.
 Figure 8

This Bode diagram has two parts to it, the magnitude and the phase. The magnitude
shows the peak response characteristics. The peak gain is 257 decibels at a frequency of
1.5e-14 radians per second. The phase shows the stability margins. For this system the
phase margin is 81.7 degrees and the delay margin is 13 seconds. Both of these occur at .
11 radians per second. It also shows that the closed loop is stable. Figure 9 is the GUI
interface that shows the root locus plot and the Bode diagram.
 Figure 9

This interface is an action interface. It allows the user to make changes to several
variables to show how the response would react. Right now it shows the comparison to
the other plots that came from the Matlab commands. Looking at the plots at this time
shows that the other plots agree with this interface. Figure 10 shows what happens if a
variable gets changed.
 Figure 10

As the poles moved closer to each other the system still remains stable and it still
approaches infinity. What did change, however, are the peak margin and the frequency.
It appears the system responded faster. The current compensator, which is also the loop
gain, had also changed as well. This became larger than what was originally place there
before. This is an important observation because this shows that if you wanted to change
the system to get a better response time, or even improve the steady state error, then all
you have to do is change the loop gain and essentially everything else will remain
constant not effecting the system in the wrong way. This is the exact technique used to
increase those parameters just mentioned. They add a compensator, which can be a PD,
PI or PID controller, to increase the response time and improve the steady state error but
still keep the system unchanged so as not to make wrong disruptions making the system
less efficient or even worse unstable.

Discussion:
The problem is now complete. A rotational electromechanical system was taken
and the system transfer function was developed and then used to make several important
plots related to the transfer function. Hopefully this report was helpful in understanding
how to approach this kind of problem and what type of things to think about when trying
to solve this and other systems to gain a better efficiency and a better design.