But even with the great visibility into position and velocity that a stepper motor offers, some engineers have taken things a step further. Not content with the stepper's native open loop control, they’ve added encoders to their motor systems. An encoder is a rotary device that can be mounted onto an electric motor.

Explore comprehensive documentation for the Arduino-Controlled Stepper Motor with Rotary Encoder Feedback project, including components, wiring, and code. This project is a precision motor control system that uses an Arduino UNO to drive a bipolar stepper motor via an A4988 driver, with a rotary encoder providing feedback for position control.

Also, keeping up with an encoder is hard work for an Arduino. And even if you do know the motor has missed a step there is not a lot you can do except shut the job down and restart everything. If the motor can't make a step without the encoder it won't be able to make it just because the encoder says it is needed.

Engineers at all levels can enhance stepper motors into even more powerful and economical solutions through the use of readily available encoder technologies. With the great visibility into position and velocity that a step motor offers, some engineers have taken things a step further by adding encoders.