Hi, I'm new here and has very little knowledge of Arduino. I am currently studying as an undergraduate student in mechanical engineering. For my final year project, I chose the topic of development of the control system of a single seated quadcopter. I would like to know if it's possible to use arduino to control the system of the quadcopter, which has the maximum weight of 200kg?
I have chosen a brushless motor, with max power of 45kW, which satisfies my requirement for flight.
I am trying to build something similar like Ehang184, but less advanced. Unlike Ehang184, which is fully autonomous, I will be controlling the quadcopter MANUALLY, just like a real helicopter.
I hope I can get some insight on this topic, or at least, a suggestion. Thank you in advance.
Note: I am well aware of the safety issues that are needed to be taken consideration.
The flight control consists of collective, cyclic and pedal. Please refer the figure below.
Arduinos are a teaching platform, not exactly designed to be robust. An Arduino board will probably do well for prototyping on your bench, but may cause problems when you try to take it to the air (mostly mechanical).
You'd be using the bare microcontroller soldered firmly on your own PCB to do the control of the helicopter, together with all the required extra hardware for protection of the inputs, control of the outputs, etc.
Other than that, I don't see any real issues, provided the processor itself is powerful and fast enough to handle whatever it has to do. It's commonly used in building model quadcopters so that should work for a full scale one which is probably actually easier to fly (it's weight and slower reaction to changes make that you have more time to react and make corrections - but doing it wrong has more serious consequences).
So that begs the question: did you ever build and fly a model/toy size quadcopter?
Thank you for your comment, I flew a toy quadcopter before, but never really build one. I will not need to build the prototype of my project but to just come up with a design proposal.
It's hard to come up with any halfway decent design proposal if you have no experience whatsoever with the devices... In practice you normally go through a few prototypes before you have the correct motors, hardware, and other controls in place.
Where the pilot's controls would be the easiest to design as you'd lift the existing controls of a helicopter. Making it also a lot easier to learn to fly the thing for such pilots.
So you will have 4 motors placed around you and will be controlling this from the seat in the middle.
This means you control lift by increasing the speed of the motors and flight/direction by increasing 2 motors by more than the other two causing the platform to tilt and directing the thrust in the opposite direction to the one you want to go in.
I Think.
So you have your main speed/lift control and then you will have to vary the thrust/speed of the 4 motors via the stick to obtain direction.
Eg. The stick controls 2 dimensions, forward, reverse, left and right and another control will handle the altitude.
This is how the model quads work as i understand.
So some sort of joystick control for biasing of the motors and 4 motor speed controls.
Saw a joystick once that moved in 4 directions and you twisted the stick to control speed, maybe set it up so if the stick is released the unit goes into hover.
Daz
Although it adds a significant layer of complexity, you may consider developing the Arduino / cockpit controller as one project - without 'actual' motors etc.
Then in place of the power drivers & motors, develop a desktop program to take the flight control driver signals - and display a visual simulation of the resulting 3D flight/motion on the PC screen.
This saves you making & wrecking the only $$ prototype (you will!), and reinforces your understanding of the physics, algorithms & flight dynamics required to perform all the functions you will need.
Your teacher will be very impressed!
Once this is built - you can tweak any variables - in real time without risk - and ultimately build the actual craft to hold the power, drivers and motors (and you!)