CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1  BACKGROUND STUDY OF THE PROJECT
    A stepper motor is a “digital” version of the electric motor. The rotor moves in discrete steps as commanded, rather than rotating continuously like a conventional motor. When stopped but energized, a stepper (short for stepper motor) holds its load steady with a holding torque. Wide spread acceptance of the stepper motor within the last two decades was driven by the ascendancy of digital electronics. Modern solid state driver electronics was a key to its success. And, microprocessors readily interface to stepper motor driver circuits (Acarneley, 2002).
Going down the memory lane since the inception of mankind, man is insatiable. They always yearn for a better comfort if not for the best. They are ever ready to risk even their lives to acquire a comfort and convenient zone. Therefore, the primary aim of any man is to actualize a comfortable, safe, convenient home. However, the scientist cum engineers are not left out in this trend, as they are always on top of their gears working towards enhancement of standard of living via science and technology.
In line with the aforementioned quest of man to improve on the quality of lives they live, Stepper motor came into foreplay. Stepper motor is used to control the position and speed of devices such rechargeable fans, antenna, elevator and so on. Stepper motors with microcontrollers are used in numerous applications when there is need of controlling the motion. This is due to the robust structure of stepper motor, absence of brushes and better control capacity when they are used with microcontrollers. These motors have excellent response to starting, stopping with reversing.
    The microcontroller is used for sending control pulses to the stepper motor drive. The microcontroller is used both to control the speed as well as position of stepper motor. The speed of stepper motor is directly proportional to the frequency of drive input pulses which is controllable with the help of microcontrollers and the rotation is proportional to the number of output pulses.
1.2  OBJECTIVE OF STUDY
The primary objective of this project is to present a study on applications of stepper motors.