Open-loop Conditions Research Articles

A dynamic humidity arena to explore humidity-related behaviours in insects.

Humidity is a critical environmental factor influencing the behaviour of terrestrial organisms. Despite its significance, the neural mechanisms and behavioural algorithms governing humidity sensation remain poorly understood. Here, we introduce a dynamic humidity arena that measures the displacement and walking speed of insects responding to real-time changes in relative humidity (RH). This arena operates in a closed-loop mode, adjusting humidity based on the insect's position with 0.2% RH resolution, allowing the insect to choose its optimal humidity. It can also be set to maintain a specific RH, simulating an open-loop condition to observe insect behaviour at constant humidity levels. Using the dynamic humidity arena, we found that desiccated and starved Drosophila melanogaster search for a RH of around 65-70% at 23°C, whereas sated flies show no unique preference for any RH. If the desiccated and starved flies are rehydrated, their searching behaviour is abolished, suggesting that desiccation has a great impact on the measured response. In contrast, mutant flies with impaired humidity sensing, due to a non-functional ionotropic receptor (Ir)93a, show no preference for any RH level irrespective of being desiccated and starved or sated. These results demonstrate that the dynamic humidity arena is highly sensitive and precise in capturing the nuanced behaviours associated with hydration status and RH preference in D. melanogaster. The dynamic humidity arena is easily adaptable to insects of other sizes and offers a foundation for further research on the mechanisms of hygrosensation, opening new possibilities for understanding how organisms perceive and respond to humidity in their environment.

Investigation of a power factor correction converter utilizing SEPIC topology with input current switching

The single-ended primary-inductor converter (SEPIC) is a popular converter topology that can be employed in diverse application fields where the needed output voltage is greater or lesser than the input voltage. The non-inverted output voltage of a SEPIC converter provides additional advantages when compared to a buck-boost or Ćuk converter. Furthermore, the position of the capacitor in the SEPIC converter provides inherent isolation and circuit safety. One drawback in the conventional bridge-diode SEPIC AC-DC converter is the lack of controllability which can be overcome by adding extra active switch(es) or by replacing the passive diode(s) with active switch(es). However, introducing more active switches increases the control complexity and may increase the requirement for additional driver circuits. To address this trade-off, this article proposes a single-phase AC to DC modified SEPIC converter with input current-switching capability without adding any extra active switch(es). The existing active switch of the DC-DC SEPIC converter was shifted towards the input side and thus no additional switch has been introduced. This allows the option of input-current switching without any additional complexity in the control or driver circuit. The circuit topology, principles of operation, and ideal voltage gain equations for the suggested circuit have been derived and included in this research work. The proposed circuit has been simulated in both open-loop conditions and closed-loop control with varying duty cycles and output load. Results from the simulation show that the proposed converter provides better efficiency (∼90 %) and lower total harmonic distortion (THD) (10 %) for varying duty cycles when compared to a conventional converter. The converter also shows good dynamic response. A low-power 15V hardware prototype has been built to experimentally validate the performance of the proposed converter. Experimental results illustrate that the suggested converter can improve the power factor by up to 0.968 while operating at an efficiency above 75 %. This converter topology can be suitable for applications where high output voltage gain, high power factor, and lower THD are needed without isolation requirements.

Empirical Investigation of a Single-phase Input Switched AC-DC Boost Converter with Improved Power Quality

The Boost converter topology is most widely used for power factor correction (PFC) converters. The conventional passive Boost PFC converter inherently suffers from the lack of controllability and non-ideal characteristics of the diode-bridge rectifier. Replacing diodes with active switch(es) offers viable solutions but increases the circuit complexity. Addressing this trade-off, a novel design of a single–phase input switched AC to DC Boost converter has been presented in this article. The active switch of the Boost DC converter is shifted to the input side of the full-bridge diode rectifier which provides more control on the input current without increasing much of the circuit complexity. Two Boost inductors and two output split capacitors are used for providing higher step-up operation compared to the conventional. The converter has been simulated both in open-loop and closed-loop conditions using the PSIM software. The simulation results show that the proposed converter provides good dynamic response and can maintain a constant stable output voltage during sudden load change. Furthermore, to evaluate the experimental performance of the suggested converter, a prototype converter has been developed. A scaled-down experiment has been performed which shows that the converter can achieve up to 85.2 % efficiency and an input power factor of 0.9.

FPGA-Based Implementation of a Digital Insulin-Glucose Regulator for Type 2 Diabetic Patients

This paper reports on the hardware implementation of a digital insulin-glucose regulator for type 2 diabetic patients by using a Field Programmable Gate Array board. For a real time-control of the patient insulin concentration, the insulin-regulator needs to measure only his blood glucose concentration. With respect to other reported solutions using general-purpose programmable hardware’s, the proposed insulin-glucose regulator allows to design a software-free, fully-hardware architecture of the system here described in detail. A prototype has been developed so to validate its functionality in the following two operating modes: (i) in the open loop condition for which only the insulin-glucose regulator is operating; (ii) in the closed loop condition for which the insulin-glucose regulator acting as an artificial pancreas is connected to a population of one hundred virtual patients individuated by employing a comprehensive theoretical model recognized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the pre-clinical validation of glucose control strategies. These virtual patients present the same trend of the variation of the glucose concentration achieving different maximum and minimum values of glucose concentrations when eating a meal. The paper presents and discusses the experimental results by comparing them with those ones obtained by implementing the theoretical model through numerical simulations performed in SIMULINK. Relative errors lower than ±1% have been achieved by performing this comparison so demonstrating a very high accuracy of the proposed insulin-glucose regulator digital system. The implemented hardware solution of the digital controller can process the input data related to the glucose concentration of each virtual patient in about 1.1 μs with an estimated power consumption of about 36 mW. These achievements open the way for further investigations on digital architectures for glucose regulators to be integrated in VLSI as System-on-Chips and/or Lab-on-Chips for portable, wearable, and implantable solutions in real biomedical applications.

A novel approach to modeling and experimenting a solar-fed H6 configuration for battery swapping stations in rural and commercial areas using a dual phase CLLC DC–DC resonant converter

In order to further the use of clean energy, the transition from internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles to electric vehicles (EVs) was initiated globally. In the coming days, there will be a need for more EV charging stations in rural and commercial areas. The installation of new charging infrastructure for different vehicles with different voltage specifications in order to charge batteries are expensive with limited availability. Also fast charging is not possible in rural areas. To overcome this issue, the battery swapping station is a good option. In this paper, a new solar-powered dual-phase CLLC DC–DC resonant converter is proposed to test battery swapping. An equivalent circuit has been derived analytically, and the optimal design of the magnetic components for the proposed converter has been derived. Simulation has been carried out for the proposed system. The proposed system was tested with a prototype set-up of a 100 W lithium-ion battery bank of equal and unequal voltage levels in an open-loop condition using Analog Discovery-2. Introducing the H6 concept in the proposed converter has the features of low stress across switches, use of higher dc grid voltage, low switching losses due to the dual phase resonant compensation network, and a multi-port isolated output system. Apart from battery swapping applications it can be utilized for Energy Storage Solution [ESS].

Investigating heat transmission in a wellbore for Low-Temperature, Open-Loop geothermal systems

Heat transfer processes in geothermal wellbores are an essential component to overall system performance, but can be overlooked in subsurface modelling studies that tend to focus on reservoir response. This study addresses heat transfer in the wellbore through a comprehensive modelling study of 10 different parameters on OpenGeoSys software designed to evaluate heat losses during open-loop production conditions for typical low-temperature (<100 °C) single phase geothermal systems. Models were set-up to focus on wellbore effects only, using a single production well with constant fluid inlet temperature boundary condition. Results indicate that under base case conditions for a 2-km deep well surrounded by rock formations with a thermal conductivity of 2.5 W/(m.K) and bottom-hole temperature of 60 °C, the difference in inlet (reservoir) and production (wellhead) temperature at the end of a 40-year production period is 2.06 °C. This corresponds to minimum heat losses into the surrounding formations of −63.3 W/m, which is ∼ 7 % of the thermal power recorded at the wellhead (assuming a rejection temperature of 30 °C) and a 3.4 % difference to bottom-hole temperature. These losses in heat can be significant, particularly when in combination with surface losses through the heat exchanger or in the reservoir through thermal breakthrough. Wellbore insulation can reduce losses, but it would appear this only impacts the short-term. Wellbore performance can also be improved, with heat losses minimized, when developing wells above the reservoir interval in low thermal conductivity rock with high geothermal gradients.

Comparative Evaluation of Three-Phase Inverter Topologies Based on Voltage Boosting Features

Voltage source inverter (VSI) is commonly used in industrial due to its stable operation and low cost. However, VSI needs to operate with an extra converter stage which is a DC-DC converter for voltage boosting purposes. In contrast, current source inverter (CSI) inherits voltage boosting features may become an alternative option to VSI. Yet, there were minimal research on CSI that dedicates to the voltage boosting features. This research focuses on comparing the voltage boosting features of CSI and VSI in both open-loop and closed-loop conditions. The performance of VSI and CSI are simulated using MATLAB/Simulink. Under open-loop operation, CSI produces a voltage boosting capability at approximately 55% higher than VSI. Yet, CSI suffers high THD percentage as compared to VSI for the same switching frequency. This high THD shortcoming can be easily resolved by using a simple CL filter. For closed-loop operation, VSI and CSI with voltage-controlled synchronous frame PI control systems are proven to have good reference tracking and harmonic rejection and are suitable to be implemented for household applications or for a standalone system. Interestingly, CSI closed-loop system can achieve a wider range of output due to the voltage boosting capability and provide a better quality of output waveform as compared to VSI.

Time-Domain Analysis and Optimal Design of LLC-DC Transformers (LLC-DCXs) Considering Discontinuous Conduction Modes

<italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">LLC</i> -DC transformers ( <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">LLC</i> -DCXs) operate under fixed-frequency and open-loop conditions to achieve high efficiency and are promising converters that can be used in the auxiliary power units (APUs) of electric locomotives. An optimal design method of <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">LLC</i> -DCXs is proposed in this paper. First, the time-domain expressions of the symmetric half-bridge <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">LLC</i> resonant converter with split resonant capacitors are derived. A current increment method is proposed to determine the expressions. Second, the discontinuous conduction mode (DCM) and voltage gain limiting conditions are used to obtain the magnetizing inductance ranges. The converter losses and zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) ranges are considered to determine the final magnetizing inductance. A 10 kW prototype is used as an example, and a detailed parameter design process is implemented. Compared with conventional design methods for the magnetizing inductance, the proposed method can effectively determine the maximum magnetizing inductance for the DCM operation of the converter. The effectiveness of the proposed method is proven by the simulations and experimental results obtained for the 10 kW <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">LLC</i> -DCX prototype. The maximum efficiency of the designed converter is 98.12% under the full load.

Nanoindentation plasticity and loading rate sensitivity of laser additive manufactured functionally graded 316L and 410L stainless steels

The present work is the first to show the effect of processing cooling rate on phase structure and the resulting nano-scale deformation mechanisms in functionally graded stainless steels produced by directed energy deposition. To this end, fabrication by laser additive manufacturing involved implementing a closed-loop feedback control approach to monitor and control the peak temperature of the molten pool and the corresponding cooling rate. Single-track wall structures were produced from 316-L austenitic and 410-L martensitic stainless steels deposited using open-loop conditions with varying processing parameters (laser power and beam scanning speed) to produce graded microstructures. These were then compared to uniformly deposited layers where a constant cooling rate was maintained to generate homogenous microstructures using these two alloys, containing well-aligned columnar austenitic grains and random martensitic packets. Microstructural aspects (grains and crystallographic texture) across different layers (bottom, middle, and top) of the consolidated stainless steel walls (austenitic and martensitic) were compared under various processing conditions (without and with closed-loop or feedback control) and characterized using electron backscattering diffraction analysis. The nano-scale plastic deformation of these austenitic and martensitic stainless steel structures were assessed using nanoindentation testing over a range loading rates from 1 to 50 mN/s. The indentation response using varying strain rates was investigated based on the plastic flow indenting transition behavior at a high loading rate in order to correlate their dependence on microstructural features (predominantly for the martensitic phase). According to the rate sensitivity analyses, the gradient in grain structure (size and morphology) in the case of additively manufactured austenitic microstructure was not sensitive to loading rate, while the martensitic grains had a high local loading rate sensitivity.

Design and Analysis of a Compliant End-Effector for Robotic Polishing Using Flexible Beams

The contact force between the polishing tool and the workpiece is crucial in determining the surface quality in robotic polishing. Different from rigid end-effectors, this paper presents a novel compliant end-effector (CEE) for robotic polishing using flexible beams. The flexibility of the CEE helps to suppress the excessive displacement caused by the inertia of the polishing robot and avoids damaging the polishing tool and workpiece surface. In addition, the contact force can also be precisely estimated via the measurement of the CEE’s displacement using a capacitive position sensor. The design, modeling and experimental validation of the CEE are presented. Firstly, the analytical model of the CEE is established using the stiffness matrix method. Subsequently, the analytical model is verified by finite element analysis. Further, a prototype is manufactured, and its characteristics and performance are experimentally tested. The equivalent stiffness is measured to be 0.335 N/μm, and the first natural frequency along its working direction is 42.1 Hz. Finally, the contact force measurement using the CEE is compared with a force sensor. Under open-loop condition, the resolution of the contact force measurement is found to be 0.025 N, which makes the fine tuning of the contact force possible in robotic polishing.

A Two-Stage DC/DC Isolated High-Voltage Converter with Zero-Voltage Switching and Zero-Current Switching Applied in Electronic Power Conditioners

This paper presents a two-stage DC/DC converter with high efficiency utilized in an electronic power conditioner (EPC), which is widely applicable in satellite communications, etc. The galvanically isolated converter contains two cascaded converters: a buck converter, which is a pre-regulator operating under a closed-loop condition, and a push–pull converter, which is intended to boost the input voltage, operating under an open-loop condition. In the push–pull converter, the power switches, including the main switches and the rectifier diodes, operate under zero-voltage switching (ZVS) and zero-current switching (ZCS) at both switch off and switch on, which minimizes the switching loss. Furthermore, all of the parasitic parameters, such as the parasitic capacitance, leakage inductance, and magnetizing inductance of the main transformer, are fully utilized. Therefore, the presented topology benefits from fewer semiconductors but higher efficiency. The proposed topology produces less EMI noise because of ZVS and ZCS processes whose fundamental switching frequency interference is relatively low. The presented converter achieves a wide bus voltage regulation range in a satellite because of the pre-regulation of the buck cell. The theoretical analysis is validated by a prototype and its experimental results. The maximum efficiency of the converter can be up to 94.5%, and the high-voltage output is 7000 V.

Feedforward Control of Piezoelectric Ceramic Actuators Based on PEA-RNN.

Multilayer perceptron (MLP) has been demonstrated to implement feedforward control of the piezoelectric actuator (PEA). To further improve the control accuracy of the neural network, reduce the training time, and explore the possibility of online model updating, a novel recurrent neural network named PEA-RNN is established in this paper. PEA-RNN is a three-input, one-output neural network, including one gated recurrent unit (GRU) layer, seven linear layers, and one residual connection in the linear layers. The experimental results show that the displacement linearity error of piezoelectric ceramics reaches 8.96 m in the open-loop condition. After using PEA-RNN compensation, the maximum displacement error of piezoelectric ceramics is reduced to 0.465 m at the operating frequency of 10 Hz, which proves that PEA-RNN can accurately compensate piezoelectric ceramics’ dynamic hysteresis nonlinearity. At the same time, the training epochs of PEA-RNN are only 5% of the MLP, and fewer training epochs provide the possibility to realize online updates of the model in the future.

Control strategy for a CO2-based combined cooling and power generation system based on heat source and cold sink fluctuations

The CO2-based combined cooling and power system (CCP) is considered a promising solution for waste heat recovery due to its environmental protection and excellent performance. When it comes to refrigerated trucks' application, there are still critical challenges arising from the transient fluctuations of cold and heat sources. According to the poor correlation between the power sub-cycle and the refrigeration sub-cycle of the CCP system, this paper proposes various controls such as constant control and optimal control to control each cycle separately and achieve stable and optimized operation. The results show that the optimal pump speed and the split valve to limit exhaust control is an effective strategy for engine heat source fluctuations. Under the engine heat source slow step condition, the net work under this control is improved by 5%, and under the engine heat source transient condition, the net work under this control is only improved by 1.37%. In the case of cold sink fluctuations, the strategy of controlling the condensing pressure can reduce the maximum fluctuation of the cooling capacity from 5% under open-loop conditions to 2.5% under control. The above control methods can make the operation of the CCP system more stable and effective.

Multiplication-free timing phase error detector for Nyquist and non-Nyquist optical signals.

A versatile digital coherent receiver capable of handling optical signals with different kinds of pulse shaping schemes (PSSs) is indispensable for future flexible and heterogeneous coherent optical communication networks. Therefore, a low-complexity timing phase error detector (TPED) versatile for all PSSs is of particular interest. In this paper, we propose a TPED suitable for both Nyquist signals with different roll-off factors and non-Nyquist signals. It requires two samples per symbol and involves no multiplications. As far as we know, it has the lowest computation complexity compared with the existing TPEDs used in coherent systems, while incurring no receiver sensitivity penalty. Numerical simulations and experiments are carried out to demonstrate the superior timing performance and PSS versatility of the proposed TPED in both open-loop and closed-loop working conditions. We also implement the novel TPED in a field programmable gate array (FPGA) and verify its real-time clock recovery performance using the 10 Gbaud very low roll-off Nyquist and non-Nyquist quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) signals.

Closed-loop control of meltpool temperature in directed energy deposition

The objective of this work is to mitigate flaw formation in powder and laser-based directed energy deposition (DED) additive manufacturing process through close-loop control of the meltpool temperature. In this work, the meltpool temperature was controlled by modulating the laser power based on feedback signals from a coaxial two-wavelength imaging pyrometer. The utility of closed-loop control in DED is demonstrated in the context of practically inspired trapezoid-shaped stainlesssteel parts (SS 316L). We demonstrate that parts built under closed-loop control have reduced variation in porosity and uniform microstructure compared to parts built under open-loop conditions. For example, post-process characterization showed that closed-loop processed parts had a volume percent porosity ranging from 0.036% to 0.043%. In comparison, open-loop processed parts had a larger variation in volume percent porosity ranging from 0.032% to 0.068%. Further, parts built with closed-loop processing depicted consistent dendritic microstructure. By contrast, parts built with open-loop processing showed microstructure heterogeneity with the presence of both dendritic and planar grains, which in turn translated to large variation in microhardness.

Brain Processes Involved in Motor Planning Are a Dominant Factor for Inducing Event-Related Desynchronization.

Event-related desynchronization (ERD) is a relative attenuation in the spectral power of an electroencephalogram (EEG) observed over the sensorimotor area during motor execution and motor imagery. It is a well-known EEG feature and is commonly employed in brain-computer interfaces. However, its underlying neural mechanisms are not fully understood, as ERD is a single variable correlated with external events involving numerous pathways, such as motor intention, planning, and execution. In this study, we aimed to identify a dominant factor for inducing ERD. Participants were instructed to grasp their right hand with three different (10, 25, or 40%MVF: maximum voluntary force) levels under two distinct experimental conditions: a closed-loop condition involving real-time visual force feedback (VF) or an open-loop condition in a feedforward (FF) manner. In each condition, participants were instructed to repeat the grasping task a certain number of times with a timeline of Rest (10.0 s), Preparation (1.0 s), and Motor Execution (4.0 s) periods, respectively. EEG signals were recorded simultaneously with the motor task to evaluate the time-course of the event-related spectrum perturbation for each condition and dissect the modulation of EEG power. We performed statistical analysis of mu and beta-ERD under the instructed grasping force levels and the feedback conditions. In the FF condition (i.e., no force feedback), mu and beta-ERD were significantly attenuated in the contralateral motor cortex during the middle of the motor execution period, while ERD in the VF condition was maintained even during keep grasping. Only mu-ERD at the somatosensory cortex tended to be slightly stronger in high load conditions. The results suggest that the extent of ERD reflects neural activity involved in the motor planning process for changing virtual equilibrium point rather than the motor control process for recruiting motor neurons to regulate grasping force.

Motion cues from the background influence associative color learning of honey bees in a virtual-reality scenario

Honey bees exhibit remarkable visual learning capacities, which can be studied using virtual reality (VR) landscapes in laboratory conditions. Existing VR environments for bees are imperfect as they provide either open-loop conditions or 2D displays. Here we achieved a true 3D environment in which walking bees learned to discriminate a rewarded from a punished virtual stimulus based on color differences. We included ventral or frontal background cues, which were also subjected to 3D updating based on the bee movements. We thus studied if and how the presence of such motion cues affected visual discrimination in our VR landscape. Our results showed that the presence of frontal, and to a lesser extent, of ventral background motion cues impaired the bees’ performance. Whenever these cues were suppressed, color discrimination learning became possible. We analyzed the specific contribution of foreground and background cues and discussed the role of attentional interference and differences in stimulus salience in the VR environment to account for these results. Overall, we show how background and target cues may interact at the perceptual level and influence associative learning in bees. In addition, we identify issues that may affect decision-making in VR landscapes, which require specific control by experimenters.

A High Step-up DC-DC Converter Based on the Voltage Lift Technique for Renewable Energy Applications

High gain DC-DC converters are getting popular due to the increased use of renewable energy sources (RESs). Common ground between the input and output, low voltage stress across power switches and high voltage gain at lower duty ratios are desirable features required in any high gain DC-DC converter. DC-DC converters are widely used in DC microgrids to supply power to meet local demands. In this work, a high step-up DC-DC converter is proposed based on the voltage lift (VL) technique using a single power switch. The proposed converter has a voltage gain greater than a traditional boost converter (TBC) and Traditional quadratic boost converter (TQBC). The effect of inductor parasitic resistances on the voltage gain of the converter is discussed. The losses occurring in various components are calculated using PLECS software. To confirm the performance of the converter, a hardware prototype of 200 W is developed in the laboratory. The simulation and hardware results are presented to determine the performance of the converter in both open-loop and closed-loop conditions. In closed-loop operation, a PI controller is used to maintain a constant output voltage when the load or input voltage is changed.

Adaptive Response Behavior in the Pursuit of Unpredictably Moving Sounds.

Although moving sound-sources abound in natural auditory scenes, it is not clear how the human brain processes auditory motion. Previous studies have indicated that, although ocular localization responses to stationary sounds are quite accurate, ocular smooth pursuit of moving sounds is very poor. We here demonstrate that human subjects faithfully track a sound’s unpredictable movements in the horizontal plane with smooth-pursuit responses of the head. Our analysis revealed that the stimulus–response relation was well described by an under-damped passive, second-order low-pass filter in series with an idiosyncratic, fixed, pure delay. The model contained only two free parameters: the system’s damping coefficient, and its central (resonance) frequency. We found that the latter remained constant at ∼0.6 Hz throughout the experiment for all subjects. Interestingly, the damping coefficient systematically increased with trial number, suggesting the presence of an adaptive mechanism in the auditory pursuit system (APS). This mechanism functions even for unpredictable sound-motion trajectories endowed with fixed, but covert, frequency characteristics in open-loop tracking conditions. We conjecture that the APS optimizes a trade-off between response speed and effort. Taken together, our data support the existence of a pursuit system for auditory head-tracking, which would suggest the presence of a neural representation of a spatial auditory fovea (AF).

Conversion of geared DC motor into stepper motor using switching delay time signals

In solar tracking system, general stepper motor is used to control the stepwise movement and low speed of solar panel in vertical motion. Degree of rotation is directly proportional to stepwise movement (stepping method) of stepper motor. But it is cumbersome process to hold a solar panel at a particular vertical position depending on the sun’s position using low cost stepper motors. So, geared DC motor is implemented into stepper motor for low-speed applications using Stepping Method (GDCSM). Degree per step movement of geared DC motor is identified using Step angle switching delay time signal (A) of microcontroller. Speed of geared DC motor is controlled by passing fixed time interval between the pulses where the pulses have fixed width. Controlling speed is implemented by using Step delay time signal (D) of microcontroller. Combining effect of switching delay time signals A and D represents the Stepping Method. Stepping method resembles the step movement and controlling speed of the stepper motor. Speed of 10RPM & 30RPM geared DC motors is operated at 10V DC power supply. Microcontroller ATmega 328P with switching delay time signals is used to control the geared DC motors. Performance of 10RPM & 30RPM GDCSM is analyzed with stepper motors in terms of Relative slip degree error per revolution (RE_mathrm{{S}}) and acceptable slippage degree tolerance under open loop condition. Change in consuming voltage tolerance (varDelta) during rotation of GDCSM is another parameter which is used to maintain the constant actual total step count per revolutions of GDCSM. At 40 ms of step angle delay time (A), 10RPMGDCSM has 120 steps per revolution. At 25 ms of A, 30RPMGDCSM has 55 steps per revolution. Speed of 10RPM & 30RPM GDCSM is controllable up to 2RPM when its RE_mathrm{{S}} or acceptable slippage degree tolerance value is less than or equal to 1%. If varDelta value of GDCSM is less than or equal to − 0.4%, then it behaves like stepper motor. GDCSM is suitable to hold and control vertical position of solar tracking system with low speed and step movement. Performance of geared DC motor experimentally showed better result than commercial available stepper motors like 28BYJ-48 or STP-43d1027-01.