CHAPTER VI - Result and Application of Quadcopter Drone

According to the proposed plan, the final outcome of this paper leads to the development of a quadcopter that has a stable flight. This project is implemented using Raspberry-pi, a frame where everything is mounted, motors, and propellers for the movement of the quadcopter, and ESC to control the motors. The result is a very stable flight platform. The complete system helps in various applications such as surveillance and rescue missions. Longer flight time can be achieved by adjusting the trade-off between two variables, the battery capacity (weight) and the efficiency of the thrust developed by the motors. The efficiency of the thrust has two factors which are the efficiency of the motor itself and the propeller design.

To safely fly the quadcopter; various tests were carried out on the individual components and the quadcopter as a whole to ensure everything is functioning properly before being flown. Two test stages were carried out on the quadcopter; these tests were Unit tests and Flight tests.

Table of Contents

Unit Tests

While the basic flight control of the APM 2.6 was tested simply by PID (proportional-integral-derivative) tuning and flying the quadcopter; there were a number of sensors that needed to be tested since they were used for the tracking algorithms. The barometer and compass on board the flight controllers were units tested to ensure optimal performance. These tests are discussed below.

Battery test:

For the battery test, we had access to several different battery sizes from which they could perform battery life tests. The prototype; which included the Flight time and camera accessories; had an average current draw of 23.95A. With the largest 5100 mAh battery; the quadcopter was able to meet the requirements for flight time. Figure 4 shows the results including the production battery.

Motor test

Motor test the motors were tested to lift the quadcopter and its components successfully (1.3kg). Above that; the motors were able to lift an additional 0.9 kg. The prototype was able to fly over 15 km/hr. meeting the prototype requirement, but the maximum speed was not tested out of concern for a crash that could occur during this test.

Pre-flight test

The speed controller and motor were connected to the battery. Then the speed controller was switched on. The speed controller controlled the speed of the fan according to reassigned conditions on the IMU sensors. The speed of the fan increased as the surrounding air pressure increased and it decreased as the air pressure decreased. Increment of both air pressure and speed can be changed according to user preferences by the modification in programming. So the speed controller performed as per the design.

Post-flight test

The next test was actual flight time with loads ranging from 0 grams to 480 grams. AA batteries were used as the load; the batteries weigh 24 grams each and are easy to attach over the entire vehicle to distribute the load. The tests were conducted in both the tethered and untethered modes. The results of the constrained test are shown in Table 9. These results were verified by flying the quadcopter unconstrained with a weight of 96 grams and 480 grams to check performance differences at the two extremes and to determine the effects of the quadcopter being constrained during testing. During the test, the quadcopter was flown at approximately five feet off the ground and the control board was set to stabilize flight.