This month, Luminary Micro is giving away three of its newly announced Stellaris BLDC (brushless DC) motor-control reference design kits (RDK-BLDC) with built-in Ethernet and CAN. These kits use the company's ARM Cortex-M3-based microcontrollers. The reference design kit, worth 150 euros, is a four-quadrant controller for three-phase brushless DC motors rated at up to 36V, 500W, and 60,000rpm. Key features of the RDK include complete CAN and Ethernet network interfaces, the 32-bit Stellaris LM3S8971 MCU with 256kbytes of single-cycle internal Flash memory, and embedded software to optimally control a wide range of motors in diverse applications. The kit accelerates product development by pairing ready-to-run software and hardware with an included motor, and providing comprehensive documentation with all software source code and hardware design files. Designers without prior motor-control experience can successfully implement a sophisticated motor-control system using this kit. Integrated CAN and Ethernet ports connect the RDK-BLDC to an array of network options - from dedicated industrial networks to worldwide control and monitoring over the Internet. The LM3S8971 handles all PWM synthesis, position, and analogue sensing, as well as Ethernet and CAN networking. Only a few additional power ICs are necessary to complete the design. The entire circuit is built on a simple two-layer printed-circuit board. The design includes an on-board braking circuit, an optional power-managed fan for forced-air cooling, analogue and digital control inputs, and screw terminals for all power and signal wiring. Interrupt-driven embedded software provides four quadrant operation for precise motor control using Hall-effect, quadrature, or sensorless-operation modes. The graphical control program allows users to experiment with varying drive parameters and observe the effect on motor performance.

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