Which statement best describes a feature of a stepper motor?

• A. It requires position feedback for accuracy
• B. It can achieve accurate position control without position feedback
• C. It can change step size arbitrarily
• D. It relies on analog control signals

Answer: (C)

Stepper motors move in fixed angular increments, but the drive electronics can change the effective step size through microstepping. The rotor advances not just a single full step per pulse, but can be driven in smaller increments by shaping the phase currents with the driver, giving you different resolutions such as half steps, quarter steps, eighth steps, and so on. This ability to select among multiple stepping resolutions lets you adjust how far the motor moves per control pulse, which is what the statement is getting at. The exact physical step angle is still dictated by the motor’s construction, and the available step sizes are discrete (set by the microstep levels you choose), not truly continuous, but this capability to vary resolution is a defining feature of how stepper systems can achieve different positioning granularity. The other statements aren’t as universally representative: some stepper systems can run well in open-loop without feedback, but accuracy isn’t guaranteed in all cases; control signals are digital pulses rather than analog; and the core idea isn’t that the step size is fixed, but that you can adjust it via microstepping.