Hello I am an Aerospace Engineer working in aircraft industry (Cessna, Boeing, etc). My professional work is in structural analysis and I also have a background in low Reynolds number aerodynamics. I'm interested in conducting research and development on < 250g quad. I believe current designs could benefit from aerodynamic improvements for greater flight time/payload/speed/etc. I would specifically like to make improvements to the DJI Mini Mavic or similar airframe. I have extensive experience in traditional RC fixed wing/helicopters but I'm completely new to quads.
Questions:
1) Is it possible to tune the PID of the autopilot of a DJI copter if I were to change some of the airframe characteristics?
2) If I build a custom airframe and transplant the DJI electronics I may end up with the board that contains the accelerometers in a different orientation. Is it possible to remap the accelerometers of the DJI electronics?
3) Am I better off just buying electronic components intended for custom builds rather than trying to retune the DJI guts in a new airframe?
4) What are the best components (autopilot/esc/transmitter/receiver) that would be suitable for 250g airframe custom build?
Thanks,
Paul Klusman
Replies
what is the point of hacking DJI ? why not select a flight controller ESC & motors that will give you the best performance ?
as per aerodynamics it does not matter that much at 250 scale ether if you flew lots of models you would know that!! lots of hardware out there on the market...
Thanks Michael. I've found a number of groups dedicated to hacking DJI but it is usually to remove flight restrictions. Very little activity in the DJI community modifying hardware/aerodynamics for improved endurance beyond just adding another battery strapped to the body of the copter. I believe most of the copters on the market could benefit from improved efficiency. They all look cool but most of them have the aerodynamics of a toaster.
Michael McDon said:
interesting proposition that has been done already the issue is a more efferent air frame will only matter while the craft is in motion not while in hover! copters hover a lot depending on application increasing endurance during hover is a goal to chase!
selecting the correct parts alone will increase your flight time by a lot !
Paul,
For investigating these options, I'd stay away from DJI. Though the SDK does provide access to a good bit of the functionality software, the firmware and hardware are another story. I'm trying to do a simple remap of the GPS unit on a Mavic 2, and have not been having a lot of success outside of traditional and tiresome reverse engineering work. I'd go with option 3. That's basically what I've come up with after about 6 months worth of work in my spare time on the Mavic. For autopilot, just go with a premade FRUv5 unit like the pixhawk4. The rest is all up to how much you want to spend. There are a lot of good options.