Post : Quadcopter brain
URL : http://hackaday.com/2013/02/15/quadcopter-brain/
Posted : February 15, 2013 at 9:30 am
Author : Mike Szczys
Tags : accelerometer, gyroscope, quadcopter, xbee
Categories : drone hacks

http://hackadaycom.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/quadcopter-brain.png

This project is the warm center of [Alan Kharsansky's] thesis in Electronic Engineering. It's an all-in-one control board for a quadcopter (http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/quadrotor-flight-computer) . This is the second iteration of the board, the first version he actually etched himself. As you can see after the break the firmware is not quite ready for prime-time. But that doesn't stop us from appreciating the design choices he's made.

You can see the effort he made to keep the board symmetrical which will help when it comes time to balance the aircraft. At the center of the PCB is the jewel of the sensor array, a combination accelerometer and gyroscope. This location will help easy the trouble of designing PID algorithms to drive the four propellers. Also included in the sensor array is a magnetometer for navigation, and a barometric pressure sensor which can be used as an altimeter. There are four multipurpose connectors used to drive the motors and provide feedback to the boards. He also included two more sets of pads on the board (without their own connectors) in case he wants to add more motors in the future. The quadcopter can be controlled from a base station via the XBee module.

Read more of this post (http://hackaday.com/2013/02/15/quadcopter-brain/#more-94704)

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