Driving Motors using Arduino
Dinesh Sharma
D. Chakraborty, K. Chatterjee, B.G. Fernandes,
J. John, P.C. Pandey, N.S. Shiradkar, K.R. Tuckley
EE department, IIT Bombay
January 28, 2024
1 Drive Requirements
For most applications using Battery Operated DC motors (BO motors) we need to be able to control
the rotation speed as well as the direction of rotation of the motor shaft.
• A Battery Operated motor typically requires hundreds of mA of current. This is much higher
than what the port pins of most micro-controllers can drive directly. For example the absolute
limit for current drawn from an Atmega 328P micro-controller pin (used in Arduino cards) is
40 mA.
• Also, to generate sufficient torque, BO motors often need to operate at voltages higher than
5 V (which is used as the operating voltage for a large number of digital circuits and micro-
controllers). Port pins provide digital outputs limited by the supply voltage of the micro-
controller.
• Motor windings are inductive and will generate large voltage spikes when current through
them is switched. We need to provide flywheel diodes to prevent these spikes from damaging
connected components.
• It is not efficient to use separate batteries to provide different operating voltages required
for the motor, the micro-controller card and other circuits in the application. Ideally, all the
required voltages should be derived from the same battery.
To meet all these requirements, we need a well-designed interface circuit between the micro-
controller and the motor.
1
2 H bridge
The high current needed for driving the motor is often provided through an “H bridge” circuit.
There are four switches in the H bridge – labelled as A, B, C and D in the figure below. The load
(in this case, a motor) forms the horizontal element of the H shaped circuit.
Supply + Supply +
• Current flows from left to right through the motor ter-
A C A C minals when switches A and D are closed, while B
Motor Motor
and C are open.
• Current flows from right to left through the motor ter-
B D B D minals when switches A and D are open, while B and
C are closed.
Supply - Supply -
Thus we can reverse the direction of rotation of the motor by closing the appropriate pair of switches
in the H-bridge. Of course we have to ensure that switches A and B are never closed simultaneously.
Similarly, switches C and D must never be closed simultaneously – as this will lead to a short across
the power supply.
3 IC LM298 with dual H bridge circuits
The mechanical switches shown in the H bridge circuit discussed above can be replaced by elec-
tronic switches in an integrated circuit which can also ensure through in-built logic that two switches
in the same arm are never simultaneously closed. LM298 chip from ST micro provides this func-
tionality.
Out1Out2 VS
The internal circuit of LM298 IC is shown on the right. The VSS (5V)
actual chip has two identical H bridges labelled A and B
with individual enable inputs EnA and EnB . Only half the
circuit (for A side) is shown here. The other half is identi- In1 In2
cal. The load (for example a motor) is connected between
Out1 and Out2 . The output transistors are connected to the EnA
digital output transistors of AND gates in a Darlington con- SenseA
Identical circuit
RsA for the other
figuration to provide high current drive. H bridge (B)
The resistor to ground is used to monitor the current being driven through the load. If this is not
required, the SenseA pin should be connected to ground. VSS provides the logic supply voltage of
5 V. VS provides the higher voltage to be applied to the motor and up to 46 V can be used for this
purpose. When EnA = 0, outputs of all AND gates is ‘0’ and all npn transistors are OFF. Thus, the
2
outputs are floating and no current is driven through the load.
With EnA = 1 and In1 at logic High, Out1 will be ≈ Vs − 1.2 V. (This is because the output is pulled
up through the npn emitter which is in a Darlington configuration with the output driver of the AND
gate – roughly two diode drops below the base drive which can at max be Vs ).
With EnA = 1 and In1 at logic Low, Out1 will be ≈ 0.2V. This is the saturation voltage of the
lower npn transistor.
Similarly, Out2 is controlled by In2 .
4 Motor Driver Cards
While it is certainly possible to design a special purpose interface circuit using such ICs to drive
motors, it is much faster and more convenient to use one of several ready-made cards available for
this purpose.
For example, we can use an L298N card which makes use of the LM298 IC described above.
• The L298N motor driver card is widely used for driv-
ing BO motors. (The card and the IC have similar
sounding names – do not confuse the two! We are
talking of the card now, which uses the IC LM298 as
a component.)
• The card can drive two BO motors independently,
providing drive current up to 2A.
• Apart from the LM298 IC, the card contains flywheel
diodes for spike suppression and a 5 V regulator chip
(78M05) to generate the logic power supply of 5 V
from the motor drive supply which can be a voltage
between 7 V and 12 V.
The LM298 IC can go up to 46V for the motor voltage supply, but the external 78M05 voltage reg-
ulator used in the card limits the maximum voltage to 12 V.
3
5V Gnd Vs • SenseA and SenseB pins are connected to ground.
12V (nom.)
• The circuit is configured to different usage styles, using
MotorAMotorB
L3 links L1, L2 and L3 (shown in blue on the left).
78M05
C2 C1 (Links are small connectors which short adjacent pins).
• Links L1 and L2 short the enable inputs A and B to +5 V.
Out1
Out2
Out3
Out4
VCC 12V (nom.)
SensA
SensB 5V Thus both motor drives are permanently enabled and will
LM298 5V
Gnd
run at full speed. If we wish to control the rotation speed of
EnA
EnB
In1
In2
In3
In4
the motor using PWM signals, Links L1 and L2 should be
removed and the enable pins should be connected to PWM
EnA
EnB
In1
In2
In3
In4
L1 L2
5V
capable port pins on Arduino.
Link L3 controls whether the 5 V regulator will be activated or not. If the link is present, higher
voltage supply is connected to the 3 terminal regulator input. The 5 V output generated by the reg-
ulator can be used by digital circuits on board as well as for powering an Uno or a Nano card.
5 Supply connections
Several options exist for powering Arduino and the motor driver card. The following table sum-
marises the various configurations which can be used:
Arduino L298N Logic Link L3 Connection between
Powered by Powered by status L298N 5V and Arduino 5 V
USB/Wall plug supply on-board 78M05 Present Absent
USB/Wall plug supply Arduino Removed Present
Motor driver 78M05 on-board 78M05 Present Present†
† In this case a preferred configuration is to connect Vs to Vin pin of Arduino.
Only if that is too noisy, 5 V(driver) to 5 V(Arduino) should be connected.
In all cases, grounds of the motor driver card and Arduino should be connected. Notice that Arduino
must not be powered by USB or wall plug supply if both Link L3 and the connection between
5 V terminal on L298N card and Arduino 5 V pin are present.
When the board is transferred to a project (say a robot), the USB connection is no more available.
In this case, the last configuration will be used.
1. We connect the ground of L298N card to ground of Arduino.
2. We retain the link L3.
3. This will power the logic circuits in L298N with the 5 V output of the on-board 78M05.
4
4. We connect the VS supply to Vin input of the Arduino card. This will provide power to the
Arduino card from the main 10-12 V battery.
5. At this time, the Arduino card must not be powered using the USB cable.
The BO motor creates a lot of noise due to sparking in the brush contacts. This noise can couple
through the L298N Board into the micro-controller on the Arduino and cause it to malfunction. To
avoid it, it is advisable to solder a 0.1µF ceramic capacitor across the motor terminals.
Additionally, if VS is connected to Vin of Arduino, a 0.1µF ceramic capacitor can be connected on
the Arduino board between Vin and Ground to reduce noise. If problems with noise persist, Arduino
board can be powered by connecting 5 V terminal of the L298N card to the 5 V pin on Arduino.
