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QuadRotor Project

Posted by Felipe Jaramillo on September 4, 2010 at 9:30pm

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I have started my quadrotor project.

Im using the mikrokopter frame with some additional center plates and a few modifications.
E-flite motors, with E-flite ESC. An arduino MEGA board. A Vectornav VN-100 which includes magnetometers, accelerometers, gyros, and an onboard kalman filter. Xbee PRO modules. Laptop with Labview.

Right now Im testing and tunning my own PID controller. Here are some pics of my quad and a small clip showing the actual behaviour of the controller, which I have to improve.




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Comments

  • Richard Hirst September 10, 2010 at 2:19am
    Hi Fab.. I have now calibrated the ESC, fitted smaller props.. and had an excellent 10 min flight :-)

    Well do to all who has been involved.
  • Ah Bao September 10, 2010 at 1:42am
    Hi Felipe Jaramillo
    You have done a lot of projects with labview right. May I know what kind of labview base projects cos I am final year EIE student and I need to do one labview base project. Right now my mind is totally blank that's why I need help from you. Please give me some advice about labview base project. Thanks in advance
  • Roy Brewer September 8, 2010 at 9:53am
    Öncü,

    That video is of ground resonance, where articulated rotor blades interact with flexible landing gear to produce catastrophic results. Very few quads would be susceptible to this.

    Ground effect makes the prop able to lift more than it could it free air. Entire vehicles have been designed to take advantage of this effect.I think what happens in a quad is that as it pitches over, one prop gets deeper into ground effect, which causes it to lift up, which gets it out of ground effect,making it less effective and causing it to drop. Feedback (and the slow motor/prop dynamics) may exacerbate the situation even more.

    - Roy
  • AVS September 8, 2010 at 9:47am
    Richard, at startup the arducopter code sends the same pwm value to each esc so the balance is down to calibration.

    Did you calibrate each esc?
  • Roy Brewer September 8, 2010 at 9:43am
    I am certainly looking forward to hearing details about the prop design.

    What's wrong with the current crop of available BLDC motors? Why did you feel the need to design new ones? (not that I'm complaining)

    - Roy
  • Developer
    Jani Hirvinen September 8, 2010 at 9:29am
    They are all made by our request. I did contact also RCTimer and others but they could not offer what we wanted to have. Prop molds are made especially for us. And currently we are finetuning those with a factory. Having small balance issue with CCW prop that will be solved soon.

    Just like all motors have 35cm long silicon wires and bullets soldered. Also props come in pack 2 two CCW + CW
  • Roy Brewer September 8, 2010 at 9:18am
    Thanks, Jani.

    Are these XYH or RCTimer motors?

    How about the props? Where / who are you getting them from?

    I have thought for a while now that quads could benefit from props and ESCs that were designed for quads instead of fixed wing a/c.

    - Roy
  • Richard Hirst September 8, 2010 at 6:06am
    Jani, Yes it did settle down with height. So more flying needed.

    Do you have any idea about the 'Balance' of the motors..? is there some configure the motor PWM. Or should I be looking at the setup in the ESC. The don't seem to all start at the same throttle setting.
  • Developer
    Jani Hirvinen September 8, 2010 at 5:31am
    Naturally it applies to everything that flies close to ground but this is not it. Ground effect is basically just huge turbulent air mass under your props so it makes really difficult to fly close to ground.. Well difficult and difficult, it always depends. At least a lot more unstable than 1-2 meters above.

    Most dangerous area for smaller vehicles like helis/quads etc is usually first 80 cm depending on main prop sizes and general masses. It's like driving a boat. Close to shore you have a lot of crossing waves and further out at sea it's almost dead calm.
  • Öncü Kayalar September 8, 2010 at 5:14am
    @Richard,

    There is a phenom called "ground effect" for helicopters.. Maybe same applies to quadcopters to some degree. See

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z-SSumb2ZA
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