State program vs. ladder program for stepper motor control

Abstract

Stepper motor is a brushless electric motor and an electromagnetic device that uses magnetic field for movement with the aid of digital pulses. Stepper motor is precise and accurate in producing discrete stationary angular rotations and because of this characteristic it has been used in various applications such as printer, sorter and so forth. Generation and controlling of digital pulses for stepper motor can be obtained by using different controller such as PC, microcontroller or Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) via different languages. This paper focuses the controlling of the pulses for stepper motor by Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) using State Program language and Ladder Program. Both languages are compared and it is found that State Program has the advantages of minimizing the number of program steps, simplifies the program, friendlier and easier to program and understand compared to Ladder Program.