Introduction To Quadcopter

Multi Rotor Drone

➢ Multi Rotor Drone uses multiple
propellers to navigate and fly

➢ They are utilized for common uses such

as photography and video surveillance

➢ They are the most common of all UAVs

➢ They can be further classified in four

most popular categories based on the
number of propellers being used. They
are:
○ Tricopter – Three Propeller
Drones
○ Quadcopter – Four Propeller
Drones
○ Hexacopter – Six Propeller Drones
○ Octocopter – Eight Propeller
Drones
Different Frame Configuration
 Early Quadcopters
➢ In 1907 Jacques and Louis Breguets
quadrotor did achieve take off, but
was very unstable and did not stay air-
borne for a very long time

➢ In the 1920s, Etienne Oehmichen

built the Oehmichen No.2. It flew for a
distance of 360m and managed to stay
in the air for 7 minutes and 40 seconds

➢ Within the same year, Georde de

Bothezat built a quadcopter that was
going to be used by the U.S Army

➢ In 1956, a quadcopter that hosted two

engines was designed for military use.
The original design of the quadcopter
was high quality and practical
 Quadcopter

➢ Quadcopter is a multirotor that uses

four rotors for its different manuevers

➢ The rotors are directed upwards and

they are placed in a square or a
trapezoidal formation

➢ The movements are controlled by

adjusting the angular velocities of
the rotors which are spun by electric
motors

➢ Quadcopters are used in surveillance,

search and rescue, construction
inspections and several other
applications.
Types of Quadcopter
 Basic Flight Dynamics
➢ The quadcopter’s movement is
controlled by varying the relative
thrusts of each of the 4 rotors

➢ Moving forward
○ To move forward we reduce the power in
the front motor
○ This tilts the quadcopter forward and the
rotors provide sufficient thrust to move
forward
○ Speed is decided by the power given to the
rotors

➢ Moving backward
○ To move backwards we reduce the power
in the back rotor
○ This tilts the quadcopter backwards
○ The thrust from the motors takes it in
➢ In addition to this, the quadcopter
has other operations namely

➢ Yaw (turning left and right)

○ It is controlled by turning up the
speed of the regular rotating motors
and taking away power from the
counter rotating

➢ Roll (tilting left and right)

○ It is controlled by increasing speed on
one motor and lowering on the
opposite one

➢ Pitch (moving up and down)

○ It is controlled the same way as roll,
but using the second set of motors.
Components Of A Quadcopter
 Frame
➢ It is the structure that holds all the components together. It
is designed to be strong and lightweight

➢ To decide the appropriate frame for the copter there are

3 factors to be considered
○ Weight
○ Size
○ Material used

➢ The frame should be rigid and able to minimize the

vibrations from the motors

➢ It
consists of 3 parts which are not necessarily of the same
material
○ The center plate where the electronics are mounted
○ Four arms mounted to the center plate
○ Four motor brackets connecting the motors to the end of the arms

➢ The motor to motor distance (arm length) usually depends

on the diameter of the propellers. Enough space between
the propellers must be provided so that they do not get
caught by each other
 Motors

➢Brushlessdc motors are generally used in a

quadcopter

➢Itoffers more power, speed and longer run

times than conventional brushed motors of
the same size

➢A BLDC motor consist of two main parts, a

stator and a rotor

➢Ifwe apply the appropriate current, the coil

will generate a magnetic field that will
attract the rotors permanent magnet

➢Ifwe activate each coil one after another

the rotor will keep rotating because of the
force interaction between permanent and
the electromagnet
➢ In order to increase the efficiency of the motor
we can wind two opposite coils as a single coil
in way that will generate opposite poles to the
rotors poles, thus we will get double attraction
force

➢ With this configuration we can generate the six

poles on the stator with just three coils or
phase

➢ We can further increase the efficiency by

energizing two coils at the same time. In that
way one coil will attract and the other coil will
repel the rotor

➢ BLDC motors can be inrunners or outrunners

➢ An inrunner brushless motor has the permanent

magnets inside the electromagnets, and vice
versa, an outrunner motor has the permanent
magnets outside the electromagnet
 ESC – Electronic Speed Controller
➢ The brushless motors are normally 3
phased, so direct supply of DC power will
not turn the motors on

➢ ElectronicSpeed Controller controls the

brushless motor movement or speed by
activating the appropriate MOSFETs to
create the rotating magnetic field so
that the motor rotates

➢ Thehigher the frequency or the quicker

the ESC goes through the 6 intervals, the
higher the speed of the motor will be

➢ Each ESC is controlled independently by

a PPM signal (similar to PWM) which
comes as the motor control signal from
the flight controller
 Propellers
➢ In a quadcopter propellers have opposite tilts. One
is for clockwise motion and one for anti-clockwise

➢ Propellers come in various sizes and pitch

➢ With same diameter and larger pitch the propeller

would generate more thrust and lift more weight
but requires more power

➢ A higher RPM of the propeller gives more speed

and manoeuvrability but lifts less amount of
weight

➢ For a quadcopter to fly we need 1:2 ratio for

weight and thrust

➢ Power(watts) = Kp ∗ D4 ∗ P ∗ RPM3 . Here D is

diameter, P is pitch and Kp is the form factor
 Battery
➢ In quadcopters Lithium Polymer (LiPo) Battery is
the most commonly used Power Source

➢ They are lighter in weight and have high current

rating

➢ A single LiPo cell can provide a voltage of upto

3.7 volt

➢ A LiPo battery has two characteristic parameters:

○ Capacity: It is measure of how much energy is stored
in battery. It is measured in mAh (Amp hour).
○ Discharge rate: This is the rare at which battery can
discharge. It is also called C-rate and expressed in C
units. The maximum current that can be drawn from a
battery is simply product of Discharge rate and
Capacity.
○ A 4000mAh 30C 3S LiPo can give up to 120 Amps of
maximum current
 Power Distribution Board

➢ Power Distribution Board

distributes power from
the battery or batteries
to various components of
the drone

➢ It has a Power Module

which acts as an extra
layer between the
distribution board and the
battery

➢ Power module also

separately powers the
flight controller
 Radio Transmitter and Receiver
➢ The radio transmitter and
receiver allow you to manually
control the quadcopter

➢ Control orders are send to the

quadcopter through the
transmitter and the receiver (on
the quadcopter) receives these
orders and make a reference
signal to the control system in
the controller
 Flight Controller

➢ The flight control board is the brain of

the quadcopter

➢ It houses sensors such as gyroscopes and

accelerometers (IMU) that determine
how fast each of the quadcopters motors
spin

➢ Flight control boards range from simple

to highly complex

➢ Complex controller enables autonomous

missions and advanced flight capabilities
 IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit)
➢ The IMU is an electronic sensor device
which measures the velocity, orientation
and acceleration along different
directions

➢ The readings of the IMU are fed to the

main controller which are then compared
with the set points and then appropriate
action is taken by the motor controller
system

➢ The IMU is a combination of a 3-axis

gyroscope and a 3-axis accelerometer,
which together makes it a 6 degree of
freedom

➢ Sometimes a 3-axis magnetometer is also

included to get an absolute yaw control
relative to the Earth’s magnetic field. This
makes the IMU a 9 degree of freedom
 Components of the IMU
➢ Accelerometer
○ The 3-axis accelerometer basically gives us
components of acceleration in all the 3
directions. It can be used to measure the
orientation, vibration and shock

➢ Gyroscope
○ A gyroscope is a device which measures and
maintains the orientation based on the
principle of angular momentum
○ It measures the angular velocity i.e., how
fast something is spinning about an axis as
well as rotational acceleration in all 3 axis

➢ Magnetometer
○ A magnetometer measures the strength and
the direction of magnetic fields and hence
can be used to determine the orientation of
the bot with respect to Earth’s magnetic
field
 Pheripheral Sensors and Units

➢ GPS
○ A GPS/Compass provides
navigation and positioning data to
the onboard flight controller and
for the ground station

➢ Telemetry Radio
○ Telemetry radio connect the
quadcopter to ground control
station Video Reciever
FPV

➢ Telemetry Video
○ Relays back live video feed of the
drone to the ground control
station to a monitor screen or a
FPV goggle
Video
Complete Layout
 Ground Control Station

QGroundControl Mission Planner