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Long Range Quadcopter
Objective
To design and build an autonomous drone capable of flying over a long distance and return accurate telemetry and FPV video within a £300 budget.
Design Development
Version 1 was completed over the summer of 2013 and consisted of:
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Aluminum Quadcopter frame
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Stability Control System
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Slowfly 9" Rotors
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2600mAh LiPo Battery
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1100KV Brushless Motors
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25amp ESC's
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6-channel DSMX RC receiver
The heart of this quadcopter was an Atmel Mega644PA 8-bit AVR RISC-based micro controller linked to the DSMX RC unit. Version one was a prototype to master flight stabilisation but had no autonomous control other than stabilisation.
Version 2 build began in January 2014 following achievement of stable flight of version 1. This design and build is ongoing and to date includes:
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Lighter weight Carbon Fiber frame
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GPS
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Barometric Altimeter
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Telemetry
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Sonar obstacle avoidance/landing
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Long range FPV
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3D designed/printed camera gimbal
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Battery level monitoring
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High capacity 5400mAh HV LiPo battery
Final design
The final design can now achieve a fully autonomous flight time of over 30 minutes and a tested range of over 2 miles. It was interesting to compare and try to beat the advances I made in my drone to that being developed by commercial drones companies such as DJI and Parrot.
Design Detail
Power Delivery Design
The quadcopter is powered by a 3 cell 5400mAh LiPo battery. To help provide extra capacity each cell can be charged safely to 4.35v and has C rate discharge up to 65C. Power is delivered via a 3DR battery module that measures both battery voltage and current so that remaining power can be monitored via telemetry. The four 1100kV brushless motors are supplied via a Q Brain 4 x 25A ESC unit with a clean 3A SBEC to power the flight controller.
