How to select uC for motor control

[sean87]

Hi! I am completely new in motor control. I want to create a low-cost motor control for BLDC (brushless DC) that comes with HAL sensors. There are 2 motors that should be controlled independently. I want to use 2x TI DRV8323 as the drivers. My question is, what kind of peripherals the microcontroller should have. E.g:

- Number of timers (I beleive 3 PWM signals per motor is a must?)
- What peripheral should be used for HAL sensor? ADC or digital input logic?
- Is there anything I am missing ?

I have some nucleo boards sitting around. The datasheet reads:

• 16x timers: 2x 16-bit advanced motor-control, 2x 32-bit and 5x 16-bit general purpose, 2x 16-bit basic, 2x low-power 16-bit timers (available in Stop mode), 2x watchdogs, SysTick timer.

So,l 2x16bit advanced motor-control means I can safely choose this chip for controlling the 2 motors I have?

[Benta]

There are lots of MCUs with dedicated 3-phase timers for motor control. Advantage is, that they have hardware fault protection of the power stage. This is crucial, specially when debugging. You can't single-step a motor control application without letting the smoke out of the power stage.

[sean87]

There are lots of MCUs with dedicated 3-phase timers for motor control. Advantage is, that they have hardware fault protection of the power stage. This is crucial, specially when debugging. You can't single-step a motor control application without letting the smoke out of the power stage.

Thanks for the feedback can you please name one of those MCUs? I really have no idea. Also, since HALL sensor will make this a closed-loop-system...what is your opinion about the amount of processing power required?

[Benta]

Forget my previous post, I missed the reference to DRV8323.
In this case, you just need an MCU that can generate a PWM signal. Everything else the DRV8323 takes care of. No processing power really required apart from setting up a PWM timer.