Motor Vibrates in Place Instead of Rotating with ODrive Closed-Loop Control

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1

I’m using ODrive’s closed-loop control mode (position or velocity control) to drive a brushless motor. However, the motor does not rotate as expected. Instead, it remains stationary and vibrates intensely. Here are my current configurations and observations:

  • When sending movement commands (e.g., odrv0.axis0.controller.input_pos = X), the motor only vibrates/jitters but does not rotate.
  • No error codes are reported in odrv0.axis0.error.
1 Like
2

Hi! Can you please let me know the encoder and motor you’re using? Screenshots of your setup configuration in the GUI or ODrivetool would be very helpful as well.

3

Hi!
I have the same problem and I am using a ipower gm5208 12 und an encoder as5048a. It occurs every time I set “odrv0.axis0.requested_state = AxisState.CLOSED_LOOP_CONTROL”. I am new to odrive and I don’t know exactly how it works, it would be nice of you if you could help me.

4

Hi! This is likely a result of not tuning your position gains. I’d recommend reading this: Controller — ODrive Documentation 0.6.10 documentation and then following this: Tuning the Controller — ODrive Documentation 0.6.10 documentation

5

Is it possible or even worth it to try to calculate the control parameters? I’m using it for the control of an inverted pengelum, so I need the best possible controller.

6

Yes, absolutely! You can analyze it as a LTI system, and calculate optimal controller gains for your desired response time. You can see the controller structure here: Controller — ODrive Documentation 0.6.10 documentation

That being said, for inverted pendulum control, you likely want to control it in torque mode, with your pendulum controller providing a torque setpoint for the ODrive. Alternatively, you can control it in position mode, but streaming in a torque feedforward equivalent to cos(theta) * l * m * g, where l is the pendulum length (assuming center of mass is at the end of the pendulum), m is the mass, and g is earth’s gravity. For instance, a 10cm pendulum at 0° (horizontal over the ground) and with a 100g weight would require a torque feedforward of cos(0°) * 10cm * 100g * 9.81 m/s^2 = 0.098 Nm. You’d constantly stream in the torque feedforward at a high rate (>100Hz ideally) – this would linearize the system’s response so you can use the ODrive’s position controller effectively.