Statement
I am building a Quadcopter drone that can be used to deliver small parcels to a specified location. The drone will have a GPS sensor, altitude sensor, gyroscope + accelerometer and multiple ultrasonic sensors.
The drone will be fully autonomous. There won't be any manual control. The basic idea I have in mind is that:
I will provide some GPS coordinates to the Arduino from a computer.
The drone will know its own GPS coordinates from the sensor. It will calculate a vector from both coordinates.
Arduino will start all motors and ascend the motor to a specified height.
It will then rotate to face the destination.
The drone will tilt forward by a specified angle and start moving towards destination, keeping the altitude constant.
Once it reaches the destination, it will stop and then drop altitude to another specified height.
When a certain button is pressed on the drone (meaning the parcel is picked), the drone will raise altitude again and return to its initial position.
Questions
Is this project doable? I am not sure about the GPS part. How accurately will the drone know its own position? I mean if the accuracy is not up to a meter or so, then there will be huge problems. So....
Which Arduino board should be used for this project? Will the on-board memory and processor be enough to store and run all the code.
"How accurate is GPS?
It depends. GPS satellites broadcast their signals in space with a certain accuracy, but what you receive depends on additional factors, including satellite geometry, signal blockage, atmospheric conditions, and receiver design features/quality.
For example, GPS-enabled smartphones are typically accurate to within a 4.9 m (16 ft.) radius under open sky (VIEW SOURCE AT ION.ORG). However, their accuracy worsens near buildings, bridges, and trees."
So, in your yard, on your roof, in a tree, in your neighbor's yard, across the street, ...
Hello
Think about to add a function for dead reckoning performed by a gyro sensor. You can use the calculated position in case of bad figures for HDOP and PDOP reported by the GPS-receiver. Good figures can be used as position update for the DR function.
I am studying BS Mechanical Engineering. I know it has nothing to with programming or electronics. I have average understanding of electronics. As for programming, I have experience with C#. I've created two games in Unity. I have also created a simulation of the delivery drone system in Unity and C#, which is supposed to be a guideline for my Arduino code.
Okey. There's hope. Build, test and verify each device/circuit You intend to use, one by one, and make sure You understand very well how they work, what they need and what they do.
Then a system integration of the subsystems, again, one by one can be done.
You’re going to be pushing quite a bit of weight around. Drone, batteries and payload.
There are strict guidelines being developed by your elected officials for a flying brick that has spinning knife blades and a droppable payload.
It sounds like a fun project, but keep your mind open to the challenges.
I think to make life a little easier ,I would have a look at commercially available controllers , GPS modules , etc for the hobby quad market - these are cheap , sophisticated and work
The OP is aware, one hopes, that s/he is srsly reinventing the wheel, and as put here recently to my great amusement, in danger of added a few corners whilst doing.
Most of what we do is pointless.
This, like many of our projects, is on a spectrum, viz:
A. You can buy a perfectly good vehicle ready to go.
--> Money. No tech challenge, fun or reward. No bragging.
Z. You can make a delivery vehicle out of the smallest of components. Spin your own PCBs. Program a flight controller into a microprocessor. Derive Gideon's equations of stability and PID processes from scratch! No cheating with google!
--> Time. And brain power. Fun, impossible (until they aren't) challenges. Real hero in the community.
There are other trades off besides money and time.
So we can't really fault someone stupid enough interested in doing something anywhere in between.
The only tragedy would be to think it's going to be of any interest to anyone else or that it hasn't been done before.
I suppose 1 in a million who start here with some kind of idea end up rich and famous. Can't think that delivery quadcopter is going to be a path to that, tho.
The first place to check, in my opinion, would be your location FAA or similar rulings.
Fine and dandy to write the programs and set up the hardware, but there will come a time for testing.
Even this may find you come unstuck with the latest laws regarding drones.