Oscillation, instability and control of stepper motors

A new approach to analyzing instability in permanent-magnet stepper motors is presented. It is shown that there are two kinds of unstable phenomena in this type of motor: midfrequency oscillation and high-frequency instability. Nonlinear bifurcation theory is used to illustrate the relationship between local instability and midfrequency oscillatory motion. A novel analysis is presented to analyze the loss of synchronism phenomenon, which is identified as high-frequency instability. The concepts of separatrices and attractors in phase-space are used to derive a quantity, which can be used to evaluate the high-frequency instability.