SUMMER PROJECT(QUADROTOR)

INTRODUCTION

A Quadrotor is basically a multicopter which has four arms and a motor mounted on each arm in to lift or propel it. It is also referred to as an UAV(Unmanned Air Vehicle). We got the idea of taking up this project because the project had a lot of scope and it was quite fascinating to build a multirotor.The project was a inter club project with the electronics club.

MECHANISM

Each rotor produces both a thrust and torque about its center of rotation, as well as a drag force opposite to the vehicle's direction of flight. If all rotors are spinning at the same angular velocity, with one pair on the same arm rotating clockwise and the other pair on the other arm rotating counterclockwise, the net aerodynamic torque, and hence the angular acceleration about the yaw axis is exactly zero, which implies that the yaw axis motion is stabilized . Yaw is induced by mismatching the balance in aerodynamic torques (i.e., by offsetting the cumulative thrust commands between the counter-rotating blade pairs). Angular accelerations about the pitch and roll axes can be caused separately without impacting the yaw axis. Each pair of blades rotating in the same direction controls one axis, either roll or pitch, and increasing thrust for one rotor while decreasing thrust for the other will maintain the torque balance needed for yaw stability and induce a net torque about the roll or pitch axes. This way, fixed rotor blades can be made to maneuver the quad rotor vehicle in all dimensions.

In order to control the Quadrotor we have used the ARDUINO Mega Board .Along the ARDUINO board we have used an 9 DOF(Degree of Freedom) Razor IMU(Inertial Mass Unit) in order to maintain the balance of the Quadrotor during its flight.

INNOVATIVE APPLICATIONS

1.A Quadcopter can be used to be capture images by mounting a wireless camera on it. 2. If a good control is made over the Quadrotor it can be made to shift loads or perform maneuvers.

RESULTS

We had been given propeller blades of 10x6 (length x Pitch) but during the testing two of the propellers broke down so we had to use 8 x 6 propellers and we were just able to lift the Quadrotor from the ground at around 115 RPM.

DIFFICULTIES FACED

1. The choice of material and the motor mount was to be decided. For frame we had the options of aluminium and balsa , but finally we went with balsa. For the motor mount we used balsa coated with fibre. 2. Keeping the arms of the Quadrotor must be perpendicular to each other. 3. To maintain the centre of mass of the quadrotor at the meeting point of the arms before and after mounting the control circuit.

4. The vibrations in the frame must not be induced to the control circuit or else the IMU that we have used would start giving false readings. 5. The code for the ARDUINO board and IMU were a bit complex and PI settings take a lot of time to get calliberated.

FUTURE WORK PLAN

We have planned that after we are successfully control the Quadrotors flight with a wireless mechanism we will work on making the quadrotor autonomous by mounting a wireless camera onto the Quadrotor which would send images which will monitored on a computer.

REFERENCE AND USEFUL LINKS

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=basic+quadcopter+tutorial http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1284741 http://www.instructables.com/id/RC-Quadrotor-Helicopter/ http://wiki.openpilot.org/display/Doc/Basic+QuadCopter