SPHERICAL VTOL UAV

Summer
project14

Project Mentors:
Rushikesh Chaudhari
Karthik Korada

TEAM MEMBERS

Pranab Kumar Prusty

Saurabh Suman
Akshay Kumar Sanghi
Aashi Manglik
Jaishri Jain

OBJECTIVE
The objective of this project is to design, build and test fly a
Spherical-shaped Vertical Take-Off (VTOL) Unmanned Aerial
Vehicle (UAV). This project consists of 5 components, namely
Propulsions, Electronics, Control System, Aerodynamics and
Structures.
This newly shaped UAV allows the propellers to be encased
within spherical-shaped struts, which enables the UAV to fly
into obstacles without damaging the propeller. This also
makes it safe for the pilot, as well as, anyone in the vicinity.
Running only on a single propeller-motor configuration, the
UAV is able to hover, climb vertically, and transit into
translation flight, which is similar to that of a helicopter.
A total of 3 prototypes were constructed where Prototypes 1
and 2 were constructed to investigate and study the
aerodynamics and structural components of the UAV. Only
after undergoing thorough experimentation and analysis to
optimise the various component designs, Prototype 3 was
finally constructed. The final product is only made possible by
integrating the electronics, control system and propulsion
components.

FLIGHT CONTROL THEORY:

All the 3 prototypes achieve yaw, pitch and roll motion using 4
control surfaces i.e , four rudders placed symmetrically.

YAW Control:

Viewed from the top, the four bottom flaps

deflect in the same orientation to give a clockwise or anticlockwise moment. In the figure on the left, the four flaps are
causing an anti-clockwise yaw moment about the CG when
the airflow flows into the paper past the flaps. The torque
effect from the counter-clockwise motion of the propeller
causes the body of the UAV to rotate anti-clockwise (about the
Z-axis), causing the UAV to yaw. In order to counter the
inherent yaw motion due to the moving propellers, the
rudders must be activated at an angle at its default trim
position.

PITCH and ROLL control:

Pitch and roll describe similar kind of motion as the model is
built symmetrically and divided into 4 equal halves. To
achieve pitch motion

two alternate rudders are moved in the same direction. This

causes the UAV to pitch in the same direction in which the
rudders are moved. Roll motion can be achieved similarly
using the other set of rudders.

PROTOTYPE I:

Prototype I was constructed to basically test the electronics.

We mainly focused on the structural strength of the model. So
stronger and heavier wood was used to build the model. A
cuboidal frame for the upper half that would contain the
propeller was made. The lower half was hemispherical shaped
and it contained the control surfaces. All the electronics
including the battery was mounted on top of the cuboidal
frame above the motor. This was done to shift the COG of the
model upwards. This would increase the distance of COG from
the control surfaces thus increasing their efficiency by
increasing the torque about COG. Landing gears were also
attached at the bottom.The model turned out to be quite
heavier. It weighed 995 grams. Even though Four cell battery
was used to supply power and avionic motor was used,
sufficient lift could not be provided due to huge drag and high
weight of structure. Also area of the control surfaces was not
enough .Thus, first model was eventually discarded.

PROTOTYPE II:
The second UAV mimics a fixed wing aircraft capable of VTOL.
Similar to the spherical UAV, it is propelled by a single rotor which
is usually placed at the tip of the UAV. It is also capable of hovering
as well as transiting into translational flights which looks like a
normal fixed wing aircraft.

The all up weight of the structure was about 650 gms. In this
model we focused less on the strength and our priority was to
reduce the weight of the model. So we used 5mm biofoam instead
of the ply used earlier. Avionic 1400 KV motor was used.Use of
balsa was limited to the parts which required strengthening such
as the legs and bottom of the motor mount. Firstly we kept the CG

much above the midpoint which made the control difficult. So we

lowered the CG by interchanging the positions of the battery and
the KK2 control board. And to our surprise the flight turned out to
be so stable that no further tuning was required.
After having few successful flights with the KK2 control board we
worked on our owm program to control the UAV.

ARDUINO PROGRAMMING
We initially started working with Arduino UNO Board as our
programmer . But we realized that it has few number of PWM pins.
Hence, we switched to Arduino Mega 2560 Board .

ARDUINO MEGA 2560

IMU

IMU(Inertial Measurement Unit) is an electronic device that

measures the vehicles velocity, orientation and gravitational
forces, using a combination of acclerometers and gyroscopes,
sometimes also magnetometers . We chose MPU6050 as our IMU
sensor which has one accelerometer and gyroscope each . Thus , it
is a 6DOF(Degrees of freedom) IMU reporting angular velocities
and accelerations of aerial vehicle along the three axes .

MPU-6050

Firstly , we worked on the code on how to read sensor values .

i2cdevlib-master library downloaded from github.com helped us in
doing the same. The MPU-6050 features three 16-bit analog-todigital converters(ADCs) for digitizing the gyroscope outputs and
three 16-bit ADCs for digitizing the accelerometer outputs . After
succeeding in reading the gyrorates(angular velocities) in
radians/sec and accelerations in terms of g (acceleration due to
gravity) along each axis , we moved on to writing the code for
reading the RC(Radio Control) receiver .
RC receivers output pulse width modulated (PWM) signals on each
channel. We read PWM signals using hardware interrupts . A
hardware interrupt is a signal that is generated by the hardware
that literally interrupts the processor. With arduino, hardware
interrupts can be generated by a pin changing value, going LOW
or HIGH. Arduino has the function attachInterrupt() , which allows
to supply an interrupt handler.

Then we started working on the code for stabilizing the UAV during
flight.

We used PID algorithm in our code to achieve this. A PID controller

calculates an error value as the difference between a measured
process variable and a desired setpoint. The controller attempts to
minimize the error by adjusting the process through use of a
manipulated variable.
The PID controller algorithm involves three separate constant
parameters, and is accordingly sometimes called three-term
control: the proportional, the integral and derivative values,
denoted P, I, and D. These values can be interpreted in terms of
time: P depends on the present error, I on the accumulation of
past errors, and D is a prediction of future errors, based on current
rate of change. The weighted sum of these three actions is used to
adjust the process via a control element. the final form of the PID
algorithm is:

where
MV : Manipulated Variable
Kp: Proportional gain, a tuning parameter
Ki: Integral gain, a tuning parameter
Kd: Derivative gain, a tuning parameter
e: Error = SP - PV
t: Time or instantaneous time (the present)
T: Variable of integration; takes on values from time 0 to the
present t.
The current orientation of UAV is the process variable. The desired
orientation of UAV is the setpoint.Thus,error is the difference in the

current position and desired position. The Manipulated Variable in

this case is the PWM signals sent to the servos for controlling
roll,pitch and yaw. After measuring the current Position (PV), and
then calculating the error, the controller decides what signal is to
be sent to the servos (MV). After measuring the temperature (PV),
and then calculating the error, the controller decides how to set
the tap position (MV). In proportional control the MV is set in
proportion to the current error. A more complex control may
include derivative action. This also considers the rate of change of
error. Finally integral action uses the average error in the past set
the MV proportional to the past errors. An alternative formulation
of integral action is to change the MV in steps proportional to the
current error. Over time the steps add up (which is the discrete
time equivalent to integration) the past errors. The current
orientation is calculated from the gyro rates. The final orientation
is the input that is the input from the receiver.the error is
calculated and the desired output of the servos is calculated by
using some equations so as to achieve the setpoint. The
proportional, integral, and derivative terms are summed to
calculate the output of the PID controller. The proportional term
produces an output value that is proportional to the current error
value. The proportional response can be adjusted by multiplying
the error by a constant Kp, called the proportional gain constant.
As Kp increases, the speed of response increases. An overly large
value of Kp will cause the system to oscillate. It will cause the
aircraft to be very sensitive. The integral term is proportional to
both the magnitude of the error and the duration of the error. The
integral in a PID controller is the sum of the instantaneous error
over time and gives the accumulated offset that should have been
corrected previously. The accumulated error is then multiplied by
the integral gain (Ki) and added to the controller output. The
integral term accelerates the movement of the process towards

setpoint and eliminates the residual steady-state error that occurs

with a pure proportional controller. As I gain increases, the steady
state error of sensing the neutral orientation decrease and the UAV
maintains its new orientation after the controls are release. An
overly large value of I will cause windup in the system, causing
the UAV to accumulate a large error in orientation and overshoot
continuously as it tries to correct itself. The derivative of the
process error is calculated by determining the slope of the error
over time and multiplying this rate of change by the derivative
gain Kd. Derivative action predicts system behavior and thus
improves settling time and stability of the system.

PROTOTYPE III:
The third and the final prototype was constructed after the
successful testing of the electronic components