Building a Quadcopter-Components Explained: Diary of a Flying Car Engineer #2

Diary of a Flying Car Engineer #2

Incase you prefer watching a video showcasing the components via Assembly, please check out the Link below:

Note: For the Crazyflie, Airframe has the ESCs, Flight Computer and Airframe are all in built on the Airframe.

Airframe

• It’s the chasis of our Quad.
• Holds all the Motors and ESCs in place.
• All of the components are mounted on it.
• Ideal candidates are light enough to allow flights and Strong enough to endure crashes.
• The material of choice here is Carbon Fibre.
• Our Drone kit features a plastic airframe

Autopilot + Flight Controller

Note: The two are mentioned are as a combined unit for simplicity However have some significant technical different tasks. Autopilot controls the motors and Flight Controller-Flight execution.

• Brains of the Drone.
• Controls the Motors and executes the Flight plan.
• Works based on readings from IMU and GPS.
• Runs calculations under the hood that are required to control the ESCs

ESC

• Electronic Speed Control
• Used to interface between the Motors and Flight Controller
• Directs the battery power and control between the two componenets

Battery

• Powerhouse of the Drone, powers the complete machine.
• Should be light enough to allow flight and powerful enough to allow a sustained flight for the flight duration.
• We have a tiny LiPo battery for our kit.
• LiPo is again the material of choice since it delivers all of the above factors.

Motors

• Motors should be powerful enough to allow flying.
• They should also be efficient enough to allow long durations of flight.
• BLDC motors are featured in the bundle since they champion the above factors.

IMU

• Inertial Measurement Unit.
• As the name suggests, give various measurements of the changes in inertia.
• In simpler terms, give the current orientation and heading of our Quad.

Propeller

• Pull the Air Downwards (Tractors)
• Act as Wings for Flights.
• Should produce enough Thrust for our Flying needs.

Note: Pitch: The twist of the propellers-is the linear distance moved by the Propellers in one complete rotation.

• Generally speaking, Thrust depends on the RPMs of motors.
• Bigger propellers are more efficient.
• Greater Pitch allow more manoeuvrability.

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