D1 - Knowledge and understanding
The course aims to provide the theoretical knowledge and application aspects to analyze and understand the operation of the most common electric drives in industrial applications. In particular, we aim to lead students to:
- know the meaning of specifications in the process of evaluating the performance of electric drives and understand their importance in an engineering and/or scientific context.

- understand the phenomena underlying the use of electric drives in industrial automation.

D2 - Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
At the end of the course students will be able to:

- evaluate the performance of electric drives and identify the impact of the use of variable speed electric drives;
- identify, in the various applications, traditional and/or innovative solutions in which the use of suitably controlled variable-speed electric drives bring about improvements in terms of performance, economics and environmental impact;

D3 - Making judgments
The various topics covered in the teaching are developed through a logical-formal approach that is as rigorous as possible with the aim of making students acquire the ability to autonomously elaborate critical judgments on non-standard solutions and/or proposals for innovative and alternative solutions with respect to the state of the art in the electric drive sector.

D4 - Communication skills
The mastery and correct understanding of the topics covered in the teaching are viaticum for reaching an adequate ability to present arguments on topics involving electric drives in a clear and effective way.

D5 - Learning ability
The rigorous setting and development of the problems covered in the teaching also lay the foundations for students to be able to deal competently and with a good degree of safety with aspects, topics, control algorithms relating to electric drives that are not explicitly exposed during the course.

Students should be familiar with the notions of mathematics,
physics and electrical engineering typically acquired in first-level degrees in Industrial engineering.
Moreover they must have good knowledge specifically of
Foundamentals of Automatic

1. Introduction to electrical drives and basics of electrical engineering
2. Motor-load coupling
3. General characteristics of electric machines and actuators
4. Specific characteristics of electric machines and actuators
5. Fundamentals of electronics
6. Basics of industrial automation

The lecturer provides the course slides and other material (papers, readings etc.) to support students’ learning.
Recommended textbooks:
G.Legnani; M.Tiboni monica;R. Adamini “Meccanica degli azionamenti. Azionamenti elettrici”,Esculapio, ISBN: 9788874889525

1. Introduction to electrical drives and basics of electrical engineering
Main definitions, nomenclature, block diagram of an electric drive. Typical control schemes.
Electrical engineering review: fundamental electrical quantities, single-phase and three-phase circuits, electromagnetism.
2. Motor-load coupling
Characteristic curves of an electric motor, operating quadrants, load diagram.
Motor-load matching, speed reducers, general procedures for selecting the geared motor. Example of geared motor selection for a given load profile.
3. General characteristics of electric machines and actuators
General operating principles of electric motors. Main construction characteristics. Losses and efficiency. Utilization indices of active parts (current density, thermal and magnetic loads, utilization factor).
Main nameplate data. Dimensional and mounting characteristics, IM code. Cooling characteristics, IC code. Protection of active parts and enclosure characteristics, IP and IK codes.
Thermal transients, duty types, thermal equivalence of duty types.
4. Specific characteristics of electric machines and actuators
Commutator machines (brief overview).
Induction machines: general operating principles, equivalent circuit, mechanical characteristic at constant voltage and frequency. Torque-slip and current-slip characteristics at constant voltage and frequency. Critical slip and rated slip. Scalar speed control: constant torque speed regulation (constant V/f), field weakening speed regulation (constant V), characteristic operating curves in speed.
Brushless synchronous machines. General characteristics of permanent magnets for industrial use.
BLDC machines. General operating principles, brief notes on control and regulation, mechanical characteristics.
BLAC machines. Construction characteristics and classification, Clarke-Park transformation, mathematical model of BLAC. Operating limits, representations in the dq plane, operating characteristics in current. MTPA-FW-MTPV for SPM, IPM, PMASR, and SynRel machines. Stepper motors and linear actuators (brief overview).
5. Fundamentals of electronics
Semiconductors and doping. Basic electronic devices: diodes, BJT, MOSFET.
Basics of analog electronics, amplification stages. Operational amplifier: virtual ground and typical configurations.
Power electronics: static converters and their classification. Power electronic devices. Figures of merit and power quality.
Single-phase uncontrolled rectifiers, three-phase uncontrolled rectifiers, controlled rectifiers.
Inverters: square wave control and "six-step" inverters. PWM inverters.
AC voltage regulators (triac).
6. Basics of industrial automation
Block diagram of a position controller.
Communication protocols (brief overview). The automation pyramid.
Sensors and transducers. Main classifications. Position, speed, and torque transducers.

The course will mainly consist of traditional classroom lectures and remote synchronous class hours. The approach to the matter is methodological-oriented, the issues are presented by demonstrating all the assertions and for the some important electrical drive schemes, the theory is corroborate by computer simulation. The students will be encouraged to ask for questions during the lectures.

The level of undestanding of the topics discussed during the couse will be checked by means a traditional oral exam devoted to verify the knowledge and the maturity reached by the candidate within the matters of the course.
The evaluation will take into account the student's ability to expose, clearly and in a detailed way, the arguments (from two to four depending on the difficulty of the topics) proposed by the teacher.

This course explores topics closely related to one or more goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (SDGs)