S14: Quadcopter
Contents
Grading Criteria
- How well is Software & Hardware Design described?
- How well can this report be used to reproduce this project?
- Code Quality
- Overall Report Quality:
- Software Block Diagrams
- Hardware Block Diagrams
- Schematic Quality
- Quality of technical challenges and solutions adopted.
Quadcopter
Abstract
Our team aims to build a Quadcopter (Quad-rotor helicopter), which is a multi-rotor aerial vehicle that is lifted and propelled by four rotors. The thrust generated by the propellers lifts the Quadcopter while the flight controller system govern the rotor speed for attitude control. A wireless remote control is used to interact with the flight controller system for changing the flight path. Our objective would be todesign and build a flight controller system that stabilizes the flight and accept commands from a hobbyist remote control during its flight.
Objectives & Introduction
The scope of our project can be divided into three parts:
- Design and build interfaces to all the on-board electronic sensor such as IMU, barometer and distance sensors
- Design and build interfaces to telemetry and radio modules to communicate with remote control and the computer
- Process the various sensor inputs and control the brushless motors on board using an electronic speed control system to stabilize the aircraft
Team Members & Responsibilities
- Sree Harsha
- Driver Development
- Balaji
- Sensor Data Processing
- Divya Kamath
- PWM Design
Schedule
| Sl. No | Start Date | End Date | Task | Status | Actual Completion Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2/28 | 2/28 | Order Components and Make a schedule | Component Ordering Partially Completed (critical components done), Motors pending | |
| 2 | 3/1 | 3/ | Components Procurement. | ||
| 3 | 2/20 | 3/15 | Establish communication with all sensors and validate data | IMU done. Left with the rest | |
| 4 | 2/28 | 3/5 | Establish communication with radio module of remote control | Learning PPM and PWM | |
| 5 | 2/28 | 3/5 | Speed control of motors | Learning PPM and PWM | |
| 6 | 2/28 | 3/25 | Flight Controller Algorithm (PID Controller) | Algorithm Learnt. Need to decide on Coefficients and code | |
| 7 | 3/15 | 3/30 | Create tasks and integrate complete code | ||
| 8 | 3/ | 3/ | Assemble quadcopter | ||
| 9 | 4/1 | 4/1 | Initial testing and tweaks | ||
| 10 | 4/15 | 4/ | Final Testing |
Parts List & Cost
| Qty | Description | Manufacturer | Part Number | Total Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | 4x Electric Speed Controller (ESC) | Turnigy | Plush 25 | $50.00 |
| 4 | Park 480 Brushless Outrunner 1020kV motor | E-Flight | EFLM1505 | $180.00 |
| 1 | Inertial measurement unit (IMU) MPU-9150 | Sparkfun | SEN-11486 | $40.00 |
| 1 | SJOne Board | SJSU | - | $80.00 |
| 1 | DX6i 6 Channel 2.4Ghz Tx/Rx Remote Control | Spektrum | DX6i | $140.00 |
| 1 | 2500mAH 5C 3S Lipo battery | Zippy | - | $15.97 |
| 1 | Quadcopter frame | HJ MWC | - | $21.26 |
| Total Cost | increasing ! |
Design & Implementation
The design section can go over your hardware and software design. Organize this section using sub-sections that go over your design and implementation.
Hardware Design
Discuss your hardware design here. Show detailed schematics, and the interface here.
Hardware Interface
In this section, you can describe how your hardware communicates, such as which BUSes used. You can discuss your driver implementation here, such that the Software Design section is isolated to talk about high level workings rather than inner working of your project.
Software Design
The MPU-9150 consists of a 3-axis accelerometer, 3axis Gyroscope and a 3 axis magnetometer. its a one chip IMU solution with onboard Motion processor for sensor fusion.Though it inherently supports on board Sensor Fusion, the IP is undisclosed. Therefore we used the library for arduino by Pansenti. (https://github.com/Pansenti) The 6 axis sensor fusion (accel+gyro) is done on the MPU and sent to an arduino where the magnetometer data is used for YAW correction. The arduino transmits the orientation data over UART which is recieved by the SJONE for further processing.
For testing, we coded a GUI in python. The code parses the serial data from the arduino and displays the orientation of the IMU in real-time using Vpython.(video and code to be linked).
Implementation
This section includes implementation, but again, not the details, just the high level. For example, you can list the steps it takes to communicate over a sensor, or the steps needed to write a page of memory onto SPI Flash. You can include sub-sections for each of your component implementation.
Mechanical Design
Testing & Technical Challenges
Describe the challenges of your project. What advise would you give yourself or someone else if your project can be started from scratch again? Make a smooth transition to testing section and described what it took to test your project.
Include sub-sections that list out a problem and solution, such as:
My Issue #1
Discuss the issue and resolution.
Conclusion
Conclude your project here. You can recap your testing and problems. You should address the "so what" part here to indicate what you ultimately learnt from this project. How has this project increased your knowledge?
Project Video
Upload a video of your project and post the link here.
Project Source Code
Send me your zipped source code and I will upload this to SourceForge and link it for you.
References
Acknowledgement
Any acknowledgement that you may wish to provide can be included here.
References Used
- https://github.com/Pansenti
- https://code.google.com/p/sf9domahrs/
- http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1284741
- http://blog.oscarliang.net/quadcopter-pid-explained-tuning/
Appendix
You can list the references you used.
