International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering

Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 3, Issue 11, November 2013)

A Learning Model for 8051 Microcontroller Case Study on

Closed Loop DC Motor Speed Control
Shashank Pujari1, Amruta Panda2, Prangya Paramita Muduli3, Rasmita Badhai4, Sofia Nayak5, Yougajyoty Sahoo6
1
Professor, Department of Embedded System Design, Sambalpur University Institute of Information Technology, JyotiVihar,
Sambalpur-768019, Odisha, India
2,3 4,5,6
M.tech Scholar, Department of Embedded System Design, Sambalpur University Institute of Information Technology,
JyotiVihar, Sambalpur-768019, Odisha, India
Abstract— Microcontroller and assembly language play a Observations are tabulated in section VI. Concluding
foundation steps towards the study of embedded system. The remark and extending the scope of the paper is given in
motivation behind this paper is to devise a model for learning section VII followed by acknowledgement and references.
Microcontroller by developing a 8051 Microcontroller based
simple closed loop DC motor speed control system as Lab
project. The basic components of the control system i.e.setting
II. SUBJECT INITIATION
the desired motor speed, sampling the speed feedback, speed The course begins with foundation lectures on
error computation and correction are developed using the microprocessor and gradually developed towards detail
8051 hardware and software resources. Therefore by way of study of 8051 along with its different interfacings. The
this project students learn the design environment of 8051 objective of 8051 theory is to make student understand the
microcontroller, hardware and software system development
internal architecture of 8051, Instruction set of 8051 and
process.
study about various types of interfaces like LCD, keypad,
Keywords—8051 microcontroller, dc motor speed control, DC motor driver etc. Microcontroller lab should be started
pwm, Closed loop system, open loop system after few class room lectures on Microcontroller. Labs
should be planned in advance and made result oriented.
I. INTRODUCTION Students should be asked to install microcontroller
Integrated Development Environment (IDE) Tool
Embedded Systems Design is an interdisciplinary
individually. Many vendors are providing this IDE, such as
course, dealing with issues ranging from hardware,
Keil-uvision and Proteus. Keil compiler/assembler is used
software, tool, algorithm and domain. The objective of the
for firmware development. Proteus is a system modeling
course Embedded Systems Design is to understand
tool which supports both hardware and software simulation.
Computing methodologies and technologies from system
Students are asked to do self-practice in the usage of the
design perspectives in a structured approach i.e. identify,
tool by following the Quick start guide from the Help menu.
study and practice platform specific tools to design, debug,
Universal programmer namely Topwin is used to program
optimize electronic systems and concluding the study by
the flash memory of the microcontroller. The motor control
implementing a project with a final demonstration.
firmware is developed using assembly language. Assembly
Learning the design of 8051 Microcontroller based
codes are sensitive to the processor, memory, ports and
system is vital interest of the students pursuing program in
hardware. It gives a precise control of the processor internal
Embedded System Design. To make learning fun and
devices and the complete use of the processor specific
develop interest in students, labs are based on real life
features in its instruction set and its addressing modes.
applications. This paper covers a project based learning
methodologies with step-by-step lab practice sessions for
the design and development of a simple DC motor closed III. TOP LEVEL SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
loop speed control application. The top level block diagram as shown in Fig:1
The paper is organized as follows; in section II 8051 comprises of the central 8051 microcontroller interfaced
Microcontroller as a subject is introduced. Top level system with the peripheral devices such as Keyboard, LCD, LED
and closed loop control description is covered in section III. and Motor driver. A Component Off-The- Self (COTS)
Section IV covers the model based design and simulation. 8051 KIT has been used to speed up the prototype
Section V covers the implementation of the hardware and development process. Each of the peripheral devices has
firmware of the DC Motor control application. been explained in next page.

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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 3, Issue 11, November 2013)
The system is driven by a regulated 5V DC, 1A power Higher the PWM duty cycle higher the voltage across
supply. The system design has been kept simple so as to the DC motor, thus increasing the motor speed.
realize a less expensive miniature portable lab prototype
model. The 4x4 keypad has been used to key in the desired
motor speed. The LCD displays the desired speed and the
actual speed of the motor. There are three LEDs of Red,
Blue and green colour to indicate the comparator outputs
status i.e. Equal, Greater and Lesser. The motor driver is an
additional attachment designed in the Lab with just enough
current driving capability to drive a 6V DC toy motor.

Fig:2 Closed Loop Control System

Fig: 3 shows the PWM signal with different duty cycles.

The motor speed is encoded using a slotted wheel mounted
on the shaft of the motor as shown in Fig:7. The IR
Fig:1 System Level Block Diagram transmitter and receiver mounted on both sides of the wheel
registers the absence and presence of the slots when the
Motor driver module has been designed as a detachable slotted wheel mounted on the motor shaft is rotating. The
entity so that it can be used in another motor control system IR receiver generates pulse signal at the rate of the motor
for example FPGA based motor control system. Three speed. In the present design the motor wheel has 8 slots,
signals namely PWM, motor speed encoder pulse and a thus 8 pulses are generated per one rotation of the wheel.
ground are used to connect between the 8051 KIT and the The speed feedback sampler counts the motor encoder
motor drive control unit. Separate 6V DC supply is pulses at every one sec. The speed feedback is passed to the
provided to the motor driver unit. error comparator.
The 8051 KIT connected to keyboard and LCD without
the motor driver unit can be used for other applications Dc Motor: DC motors are widely used because
based lab experiments such as simple calculator etc. controlling a DC motor is somewhat easier than other kinds
The closed loop control system is shown in Fig- 2. The of motors. When DC voltage is applied with proper current
desired speed set by the user is compared against the to a motor, it rotates in a particular direction but when the
feedback speed. The feedback is sampled at every 1 sec connection of voltage between two terminals is reversed,
interval. However this sampling interval can be changed to motor rotates in another direction. In present design a 6V
see the effect of the closed loop response. The error DC toy motor is used.
comparator generates three signals i.e. Greater, Equal, Pulse Width Modulation (pwm): The Pulse-Width-
Lesser when the set speed > actual speed, set speed = Modulation (PWM) in microcontroller is used to control
actual speed, set speed < actual speed respectively. These duty cycle of DC motor. PWM is an entirely different
three signals in turn controls the following up/down approach to controlling the speed of a DC motor. Power is
counter. Positive error increments the counter, negative supplied to the motor in square wave of constant voltage
error decrements the counter, and at no error counter value but varying pulse-width or duty cycle.
is not changed. The counter output is passed to the next Since the frequency is held constant while the on-off
block which generates the PWM signal. The PWM duty time is varied, the duty cycle of PWM is determined by the
cycle is proportional to the counter value. So, a positive pulse width. The expression of duty cycle is determined by,
error increments the count, which in turn increments the Duty cycle = (ON/ON+OFF)*100.
PWM duty cycle.

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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 3, Issue 11, November 2013)
In addition to these physical devices, several companies
also offer MCS-51 derivatives as IP cores for use in FPGA
or ASIC designs.
Intel's original MCS-51 family was developed using
NMOS technology, but later versions, identified by a letter
C in their name (e.g., 80C51) used CMOS technology and
consume less power than their NMOS predecessors. This
made them more suitable for battery-powered devices.
LCD: The LCD Module can easily be used with an 8051
microcontroller. The LCD requires 3 control lines and 8 I/O
lines for the data bus. The three control lines are referred to
as EN, RS, and RW. The EN line is called "Enable." To
send data to the LCD, this line is first made low (0) and then
the other two control lines are set and data is put on the data
bus. When the other lines are completely ready, EN is made
FIG:3 Duty Cycle Calculation high (1) for the minimum amount of time required by the
The speed of the motor depends on three factors: LCD datasheet (this varies from LCD to LCD), and end by
bringing it low (0) again. The RS line is the "Register
(a) Load (b) Voltage and (c) Current.
Select" line. When RS is low (0), the data is to be treated as
For a given fixed load we can maintain a steady speed by a command or special instruction (such as clear screen,
using a method called pulse width modulation (PWM). position cursor, etc.). When RS is high (1), the data being
By changing (modulating) the width of the pulse applied sent is text data which should be displayed on the screen.
to the DC motor we can increase or decrease the amount of For example, to display the letter "T" on the screen you
power provided to the motor, thereby increasing or would set RS high. The RW line is the "Read/Write" control
decreasing the motor speed. Notice that, although the line. When RW is low (0), the information on the data bus is
voltage has fixed amplitude, it has a variable duty cycle. being written to the LCD. When RW is high (1), the
That means the wider the pulse, the higher the speed. program is effectively querying (or reading) the LCD. Only
PWM is so widely used in DC motor control that some one instruction ("Get LCD status") is a read command. All
microcontrollers come with the PWM circuitry embedded in others are write commands--so RW will almost always be
the chip. In such microcontrollers the configuration registers low.
are loaded with the values of the high and low portions of KEYPAD: Keypads are often used as a primary input
the desired pulse, and the rest is taken care by the device for embedded microcontrollers. The keypads actually
microcontroller. This allows the microcontroller to do other consist of a number of switches, connected in a row/column
things. For microcontrollers without PWM circuitry, the arrangement. In order for the microcontroller to scan the
various duty cycles pulses are generated using software, keypad, it outputs a nibble to force one (only one) of the
which prevents the microcontroller from doing other things. columns low and then reads the rows to see if any buttons in
The ability to control the speed of the DC motor using that column have been pressed. The rows are pulled up by
PWM is one reason that DC motors are preferable over AC the internal weak pull-ups in the 8051 ports. Consequently,
motors. as long as no buttons are pressed, the microcontroller sees
8051 MICROCONTROLLER: The microcontroller acts logic high on each of the pins attached to the keypad rows.
like the brain of the DC motor speed control system. The The nibble driven onto the columns always contains only a
microcontroller chip that has been selected for the purpose single 0. The only way the microcontroller can find a 0 on
of controlling the speed of DC motor is 8051. any row pin is for the keypad button to be pressed that
The Intel MCS-51 (commonly referred to as 8051) is connects the column set to 0 to a row. The controller knows
Harvard architecture, single chip microcontroller (µC) series which column is at a 0-level and which row reads 0,
which was developed by Intel in 1980 for use in embedded allowing it to determine which key is pressed.
systems. While Intel no longer manufactures the MCS-51,
binary compatible derivatives remain popular today.

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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 3, Issue 11, November 2013)
IV. DESIGN & SIMULATION
Model based design approach is an ideal approach for
Embedded System Design. There are many system model
tools available from various vendors. These tools facilitate
the design of hardware and software before actual physical
implementation of the system. Proteus tool is used for this
project. The Protues tool also provides virtual instruments
like Oscilloscope, Logic analyser to monitor the signals of
the system. Students install and learn the use of the Proteus
tool by going through the readymade examples which
comes free with the tool. Step by step design process of
building a small system for example flashing, counting,
shifting, and rotating a set of LEDs connected to 8051
Microcontroller ports is designed and practiced using the
assembly language programming and drawing the schematic
of the system. Proteus allows assembly code to be
assembled and downloaded on the virtual 8051. For C
language coding Keil compiler can be used and the
generated hex code can be used to configure and run the
virtual 8051. Fig:5 Closed Loop Flow Chart

The firmware flow chart is shown in Fig- 5. In every

embedded system design first step is to initialize all the
elements in the project. Here LCD, keypad, timer, LED, ref
speed is initialized. Device driver for Keypad, LCD display,
Motor speed sampler and firmware modules for Speed Error
comparator, Up/Dn counter, PWM signal generator are
coded, assembled and debugged individually. In next step
these modules are integrated for uniform flow of control and
data across all modules in real time.
The keypad User Interface Module (UIM) provides the
user facility to view and/or change all the control and
monitoring variables with control program. After
initializations processor waits for any key pressed by the
user.
The speed error difference between the set speed and
actual speed controls the duty cycle of PWM signal. If there
is speed error the previous PWM duty cycle is maintained.
The closed loop system samples the motor actual speed,
Fig:4 Proteus Circuit Simulation computes the speed error, changes the Up/Dn counter value
The 8051 microcontroller based closed loop DC motor and finally regulates the PWM duty cycle every 1 sec
control system as shown in Fig-4. The system is equipped interval.
with an LCD display, a keypad, transistorized motor driver.

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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 3, Issue 11, November 2013)

Fig:6 Hardware Setup

The hardware development setup is shown in Fig-6. The Fig:7 Motor Driver Diagram
8051 KIT is procured from a local vendor. The Motor driver
II. TESTING & OBSERVATION
unit is assembled using the motor, gear and wheel
arrangement available in a bought out Toy Mechano KIT. The motor control system is tested in both open loop and
The 8051 KIT and the motor driver unit as shown in the closed loop. Table-1 shows the PWM duty cycle and the
figure are driven by an external +5V Lab power supply. The speed of rotation of the motor in open loop without the
micro controller is programmed by the Topwin programmer speed feedback. As seen the motor fails to start at low ON
before mounting on the 8051 socket of the KIT. Two period since the average voltage across motor is not
important signals i.e. PWM from microcontroller KIT to sufficient to overcome the stall inertia. Table – 2 shows
motor driver unit and motor speed encoder clock from the observation during closed loop system. The numeral 1 to 9
motor driver unit to microcontroller KIT, and common is keyed in, which represents 10% to 90% duty cycle
ground signal are wired between the two units. The motor respectively. The next column shows the actual speed
driver unit has a 9 pin D connector through which all the closely following the desired speed which confirms the
signals are brought out. closed loop operation of the motor. Initially the motor
The motor driver as shown in Fig-7 is a Darlington rotates from stall condition and the actual speed gradually
transistor comprising of a switching transistor BC 457 and increases and matches the desired speed. While the motor is
power transistor SL100 to drive sufficient current to rotate picking up speed the three Red, Green and Blue LED
the motor. When the low power switching transistor BC-457 displays the relational difference between the desired speed
is OFF the high power transistor SL-100 is ON and them and actual speed as given in following examples.
motor gets supply current and rotates. Hence the PWM
Design Simulation
pulse needs to be reversed so that ON period of PWM
decides the motor ON period. The average voltage decides Let SET SPEED=A and ACTUAL SPEED=B
speed of the motor. The IR LED based speed encoder If A>B then RED LED will glow.
generates pulses in proportion to the rotation of the motor.
The speed encoder is made out of a wheel with 8 holes. So If A<B then GREEN LED will glow.
the IR transmitter/receiver LED generates 8 pulses per one If A=B then BLUE LED will glow.
revolution of the motor.

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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 3, Issue 11, November 2013)
Example.1 Example.2 Example.3 TABLE I

Key Press=8 Key Press=8 Key Press=8 Up/Dn Total On time Off time Duty Speed
time Pulses
Set Speed=44 Set Speed=44 Set Speed=44 Counter (µ sec) (µ sec) Cycle per sec
Output (µ sec)
%
Actual Speed=44 Actual Speed=45 Actual Speed=41
LED Glow=BLUE LED Glow=GREEN LED Glow=RED 0000 160 10 150 6.250 -
0001 160 20 140 12.50 -
0010 160 30 130 18.75 -
0011 160 40 120 25.00 -
0100 160 50 110 31.25 -
0101 160 60 100 37.50 12
0110 160 70 90 43.75 16
0111 160 80 80 50.00 24
1000 160 90 70 56.25 28
1001 160 100 60 62.50 34
1010 160 110 50 68.75 40
1011 160 120 40 75.00 44
1100 160 130 30 81.25 50
1101 160 140 20 87.50 54
1110 160 150 10 93.75 56
1111 160 150 10 93.85 56
Fig:8 PWM & Motor Speed Waveform

Fig.8 shows model based simulation of the complete TABLE III

motor control system. Virtual oscilloscope is showing the Key Press Set Speed Actual Speed
PWM and motor speed clock signals at the top and next to
clocks per sec clocks per sec
top.
9(90% duty cycle) 56 55
8 (80% duty cycle) 48 47
7 (70% duty cycle) 42 41
6 (60% duty cycle) 34 33
5 (50% duty cycle) 30 29
4 (40% duty cycle) 24 23

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 International Journal of Emerging Technology and Advanced Engineering
Website: www.ijetae.com (ISSN 2250-2459, ISO 9001:2008 Certified Journal, Volume 3, Issue 11, November 2013)
V. CONCLUSION & FUTURE SCOPE [2] MCS-51TM Macro Assembler User's Guide, Publication number
9800937, Intel Corporation.
The design of a closed loop system to control the speed [3] Prof. shashank pujari, ―A simple closed loop dc motor speed control
of a DC Motor was successfully implemented in this paper. system on fpga platform for vhdl beginner‖, International Journal of
DC motors have speed control capabilities which means that Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 4, Issue3, March-2013
speed, torque and even direction of rotation can be changed [4] Jimenez-Fernandez, A. ; Arquitectura y Tecnol. de Computadore,
at any time to meet new condition. The hardware of the Univ. de Sevilla, Sevilla ; Paz-Vicente, R. ; Rivas, M. ; Linares-
Barranco, A.,‖ AER-based robotic closed-loop control system‖,
proposed system and interfacing with computer is explained ISCAS 2008.
in this paper .The case study satisfied the objective of [5] Beetner, d. ; dept. of electr. & comput. eng., missouri univ., rolla,
learning 8051 microcontroller in a practical way. mo, usa ; pottinger, h. ; mitchell, k. ―Laboratories teaching concepts
The paper can be redesigned on AVR and ARM in microcontrollers and hardware-software co-design‖, frontiers in
microcontroller platforms. The scope of the project can be education conference, 2000. fie 2000. 30th annual (volume:2 )
further extended by inclusion of a PID controller in control [6] Mazidi & mazidi ―The 8051 Microcontroller Embedded Systems‖.
system taking into account motor electrical time constant. [7] Proteus & Keil user manual.
[8] Guoshing Huang ,Shuocheng Lee‖PC-based PID speed control
Acknowledgment in DC motor‖
Authors wish to thank Sambalpur University Institute Of [9] T.C. Green 1 ; B.W. Williams ―Derivation of motor line-current
Information Technology for the support in providing the waveforms from the DC-link current of an inverter‖, : IEE
development tools, KITs and laboratory infrastructure in Proceedings B (Electric Power Applications), Volume 136,
Issue 4, July 1989, p. 196 – 204
carrying out this project.
REFERENCES
[1] John Wharton: An Introduction to the Intel MCS-51TM Single-Chip
Microcomputer Family, Application Note AP-69, May 1980, Intel
Corporation.

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