Luke Metcalfe
Quadcopter
February 2017
After visiting the offices of Dark Wing Aerial Cinematography, a production company specialising in filming with drones, I felt inspired to build a drone of my own. I spent weeks researching quadcopter architectures, motors, speed controllers, flight controllers, transmitters, receivers and FPV equipment. My intention was to learn as much as I could from the experience while keeping within the constraints of my very-limited student budget. To minimise costs, I decided to build a small racing quadcopter without FPV equipment and expensive telemetry modules such as GPS.
Build
I took great care while assembling the drone to ensure the highest possible build quality. I made several deviations from typical drone builds, to customise the drone to suit my own needs.
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For instance, I created a flexible connection between the battery and power distribution board, which I crafted out of silicone. This prevented the connector from snapping through normal wear and tear and in the event that the battery dislodged itself. I also used a special type of velcro to connect the battery and voltage monitor, to ensure a firm hold, but relatively easy removal.
I programmed the flight controller using CleanFlight (now BetaFlight), which was a great learning experience in itself.
* above image is not my own
Observations and Conclusions
The drone was only configured to fly in manual mode, meaning that it had no GPS lock, altitude hold, or auto-level features. It flew heads free and had no FPV gear, meaning I had to maintain line-of-sight and be constantly aware of its orientation. As an aviation enthusiast, I found this fly-by-wire type of control incredibly exciting, as I developed a deep understanding of quadcopter dynamics, could make more complex manoeuvres and trajectories, and it felt like I was training my own internal PID controllers!
This project was an incredible learning experience that only left me wanting to build and fly more. In the future, I plan to build another, larger drone with FPV equipment and GPS to enable hovering and positional lock. I also intend to use a more complex flight controller such as The Cube and use Ardupilot to plan missions and set waypoints. My aim is to attach various peripherals to the drone and use mission planning to make the drone carry out a series of tasks autonomously.