Stepper motor

A stepper motor, also known as step motor or stepping motor, is an electrical motor that rotates in a series of small angular steps, instead of continuously. Stepper motors are a type of digital actuator. Like other electromagnetic actuators, they convert electric energy into mechanical energy to perform work.

A stepper motor is a brushless DC electric motor that divides a full rotation into a number of equal steps. The motor's position can be commanded to move and hold at one of these steps without any position sensor for feedback (an open-loop controller), as long as the motor is correctly sized to the application in respect to torque and speed.

Switched reluctance motors are very large stepping motors with a reduced pole count, and generally are closed-loop commutated.