Quadrotor using Arduino

Published on 19 May 2022. Written by Dineshkumar E

In the modern world, it takes more than the required time to reach from one place to another, thus we must look forward to some airways. A Quadrotor is one of the flying unit used to lift the object from one place to another in lesser time and it finds high demand in industrial and surveillance sectors. For industry-level applications quadrotors are built using pre-programmed Flight Controllers which will have inbuilt gyroscope and accelerometer, but for smaller applications, it is not applicable. By using Arduino as a flight controller for quadrotor we can make it efficient and affordable for smaller applications.

Project Description:

This project includes the design and development of the Quadrotor using Arduino. It is controlled remotely with the help of the transmitter and receiver. The receiver is attached to the controller board. Before starting the fabrication process, you need to understand the basic aerodynamics of Quadrotor and how to program the Arduino microcontroller board. The following are the components which are required to build the Arduino based Quadrotor.

Arduino UNO: It is an open-source computing platform used for building digital devices and interactive objects that can sense and control objects. It’s a microcontroller, based on AT mega 328P which consists of 14 digital input/output pins. A separate IDE (Integrated Development Environment) is used to upload the program to the Arduino board.

Gyroscope and Accelerometer Sensor: To achieve a stable flight gyroscope and accelerometer sensor is used in quadrotors. MPU6050 is a low power sensor with a sensing element and an IC interface.

Brushless DC motor: BLDC is used to produce thrust for the quadrotor. It gives higher RPM and the friction produced is also low compared to brushed DC motors. The motor is selected by considering the thrust requirement and the weight of the quadrotor.

Propellers: There are two types of propeller Pusher (Clockwise) and Puller (Anticlockwise). It is attached to the motor for producing thrust.

Electronic Speed Controller: It converts the PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) signal received from the flight controller (Arduino board) and receiver. Then drives the brushless motor by providing required electrical power.

Transmitter and Receiver: It works on the radio frequency of 2.4GHz, the command given by the transmitter is received by a receiver that is connected to a flight controller (Arduino board).

Lithium Polymer Battery: It is a rechargeable battery. They provide high voltage and long run time as they hold huge power in a small package.

Above mentioned are the parts required for the fabrication of quadrotor and all the parts are attached to the frame. First, you need to write the program required for the Flight Controller (Arduino) using IDE and it is tested. All the components like motors, ESC, sensors and Flight Controller (Arduino) are calibrated before flying. To reduce the vibration of the frame vibration absorbing mount can be used. So that we can get a more stable flight.

Conclusion:

Now, Quadrotor using Arduino is successfully developed at a cheaper and affordable price. It can be used as a low-cost alternative to various applications. A camera or GPS is attached so that it can be navigated easily and through image processing, it can detect people and objects. Thus quadrotor is useful for many situations.

Kit required to develop Quadrotor using Arduino:

Technologies you will learn by working on Quadrotor using Arduino:

Quadrotor using Arduino

Any Questions?

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