ONLINE CLASS (2021-22)
SECA4003- DRONE ELECTRONICS
MENTOR-COURSE INSTRUCTOR
Dr.M.SUMATHI
PROFESSOR
Department of ECE
Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology
SYLLABUS
UNIT CONTENTS HOURS
I INTRODUCTION TO DRONE 9
Definition of drones , History of drones , Classification of drones based on structure- Fixed w
ing structure, Lighter than air systems and Rotary-wing aircraft, Application of drones, Parts o
f Drone system, System design, Mechanical design, hardware design, software architecture, L
ogistic and Operations Management.
II DYNAMICS AND STABILITY 9
Forces of flight, Principal axes and rotation of aerial systems - Longitudinal axis, Lateral(trans
verse) axis and Perpendicular axis, Equilibrium, Stability - Stable system, Unstable system and
Neutrally stable system, Control – Roll, Pitch, Yaw and Throttle.
III SENSORS IN DRONE 9
Sensors – Accelerometer, Barometer, Gyro Sensor, Magnetometer, Distance sensors , Time of
Flight (ToF) Sensors, Thermal sensors, Chemical Sensors and thermal sensors. Sensor Testing
– Test Philosophies and methodologies, Test equipment, Performance testing of sensors
IV GLIDING DRONES 9
Glider, Lift, Drag, Airfoil and its type, Incident and decalage angle, Three axis motion (roll, pit
ch, and yaw), Thrust, Aspect ratio and glide ratio, Glide or dive and descent, gliding angle, Cl
imb, Center of pressure, Pitching moment, Load factor, Angle of attack, Build our own glider
drone.
V DRONES FOR MISSION CONTROL APPLICATION 9
ESP8266, Downloading and installing APM Planner or Mission Planner, Configuring the quad
copter - Frame type selection, Compass calibration, Access calibration, Radio calibration, Fligh
t mode calibration and Failsafe calibration, Surveying with a drone, tweaks with the Flight Pla
n screen. Future of Drone Systems
C COURSE OUTCOMES
It is a measurable, observable, and specific statement that clearly
indicates what a student should know and be able to do as a result of learning
On completion of the course, student will be able to
CO1 – Apply the mathematical / engineering concepts in building drones
CO2 – Analyze the mathematical relation between force, equilibrium, stability and the
movement of drones
CO3 – Select appropriate sensors and actuators for specific applications
CO4 – Design gliding drones for real world applications
CO5 – Appraise the performance of subunits in drones
CO6 – Design a drone for mission control application.
T TEXT / REFERENCE BOOKS
1. Syed Omar Faruk Towaha, "Building Smart Drones with ESP8266 and Arduino: Build
exciting drones by leveraging the capabilities of Arduino and ESP8266” Packt
Publishing, 2018
2. Aaron Asadi, “Drones The Complete Manual. The essential handbook for drone
enthusiasts”, Imagine Publishing Limited, 2016
3. Neeraj Kumar Singh, Porselvan Muthukrishnan, Satyanarayana Sanpini, “Industrial
System Engineering for Drones: A Guide with Best Practices for Designing”, Apress,
2019
4. Felipe Gonzalez Toro, Antonios Tsourdos, “UAV or Drones for Remote Sensing
Applications”2018.
5. K R Krishna, “Agricultural Drones: A Peaceful Pursuit”, Apple Academic Press; CRC
Press, 2018
UNIT 2
DYNAMICS AND STABILITY
• Forces of flight
• Principal axes and rotation of aerial systems
• Longitudinal axis, Lateral(transverse) axis and Perpendicular
axis
• Equilibrium, Stability - Stable system
• Unstable system and
• Neutrally stable system, Control – Roll, Pitch, Yaw and
Throttle
DRONE
DYNAMICS
• The physics for flying a drone is really necessary to be known by all the
• drone pilots because, if you cannot master the air, your drone will not fly
properly. how air is effected by the propellers of the drone.
The figure is taken from the NASA website.
They simulated the aerodynamics via
computers:
7
INTRODUCTION
• So, basically a drone (specially quadcopters) has two pairs of propellers (two
in a clockwise direction and another two in a anticlockwise direction).
• The speed of each motor is individually controlled to control the movement
of the drone.
• We need to think about two things for flying a drone, the torque, and the
thrust. Well, a torque is nothing but a twisting force that tends to cause
rotation.
• Alternatively, we can say, in physics, the capability of rotating an object
around a fixed axis is known as torque. It is symbolized as (Tau).
Mathematically, torque is the vector product of force (F) and the distance (r)
of the axis.
8
DEFINITION
99
FORCES
• We use a small control board to control the drone. The control board has a
few sensors that provide the necessary signals to move the propellers at the
proper speed, and in the right direction.
• Inside the control board, there is a gyroscope and accelerometer that
provide the orientation information of the drone.
• The RC receiver gets a signal from the RC transmitter and sends it to the
microcontroller of the control board, and the ESCs connected to the
microcontroller are then controlled to provide the necessary speed.
• The following figure shows the forces and movements of the quadcopter:
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FORCES AND MOVEMENTS
11
DEFINITIONS & EQUATIONS
12
RELATIONSHIP
13
HOVER,RISE AND DROP
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PROPELLER MOVEMENTS
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DRONE FRAMES
• Basically, the drone frame is the most important to build a drone. It
helps to mount the motors, battery, and other parts on it. If you want to
build a copter or a glide, you first need to decide what frame you will
buy or build.
• For example, if you choose a tricopter, your drone will be smaller, the
number of motors will be three, the number of propellers will be three,
the number of ESC will be three, and so on.
• If you choose a quadcopter it will require four of each of the earlier
specifications. For the gliding drone, the number of parts will vary.
• So, choosing a frame is important as the target of making the drone
depends on the body of the drone. And a drone's body skeleton is the
frame. 18
• If you want to buy the drone frame, there are lots of online shops who sell
ready-made drone frames. Make sure you read the specification before
buying the frames. While buying frames, always double check the motor
mount and the other screw mountings.
• If you cannot mount your motors firmly, you will lose the stability of the
drone in the air. About the aerodynamics of the drone flying, we will
discuss them soon.
• The following figure shows a number of drone frames. All of them are pre-
made and do not need any calculation to assemble.
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DRONE FRAMES
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FRAME ACCESSORIES
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• You should also choose a material which light but strong.
My personal choice is carbon fiber. But if you want to
save some money, you can buy strong plastic frames.
• You can also buy acrylic frames. When you buy the
frame, you will get all the parts of the frame
unassembled, as mentioned earlier.
• The following picture shows how the frame will be
shipped to you, if you buy from the online shop.
22
SPECIFICATIONS
• Table 1-2 lists the specifications covering additional internal features of the drone
system. It must again be noted that the specification here is for an example drone
and will vary from one drone system to another.
• As seen earlier, some subsystems from the list may or may not be required for the
target application of the system.
• Table 1-2. Detailed Features of a Drone System
• Subsystems Features Specifications
• NETWORK Technology GSM / CDMA / HSPA / EVDO / LTE
• PROCESSING CPU Quad-core 2.34 GHz
• GPU 6-core graphics
• MEMORY Card slot No
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FEATURES OF A DRONE
• Internal 32/128/256 GB, 2 GB RAM
• CAMERA Primary 12 MP (f/1.8, 28mm, 1/3"), phase detection autofocus,
• OIS, quad-LED dual-tone flash, check quality
• Features Geo-tagging, simultaneous 4K video and 8MP image
• recording, touch focus, face/smile detection, HDR
• (photo/panorama)
• Video 2160p@30fps, 1080p@30/60/120fps, 720p@240fps,
• check quality
• Secondary 7 MP (f/2.2, 32mm), 1080p@30fps, 720p@240fps,
• face detection, HDR, panorama
• AUDIO Alert types Vibration
• Loudspeaker Yes, with stereo speakers
• 3.5mm jack No
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• Equilibrium, Stability - Stable system
• Unstable system and
• Neutrally stable system, Control
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EQUILIBRIUM STATES
• If a system in an equilibrium state, returns to equilibrium following a small
disturbance, the state is said to be stable equilibrium Figure 1.
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• On the other hand, if the system diverges from equilibrium when slightly disturbed,
the state is said to be an unstable equilibrium.
• Strictly speaking, Figure 1(d) is also a case of stable equilibrium, because a very
small disturbance from equilibrium would result in a force and moment imbalance
that would return the ball to its original equilibrium state.
• But a little extra disturbance, towards right could cause the ball to move past the
apex, which would produce a force and moment imbalance that would cause the
ball to move away from its original equilibrium state.
• This type of stable equilibrium can sometime occur with an aircraft.
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• In general, when aircraft is being referred to be in stable equilibrium, we mean
dynamic stability. However, it so happen that for most of the cases, for conventional
aircraft, if it is statically stable, it also automatically satisfies dynamic stability
criterion { but not all aircraft! Handling qualities may be different.
• Static equilibrium occurs whenever there is no acceleration (linear or angular) of
the aircraft. Un-accelerated flight requires that the summations of forces and
moments acting on the aircraft are zero.
• Static equilibrium also requires that the side force acting on the airplane is also
zero.
• Additionally, the summation of moments about the centre of gravity (CG) in roll,
pitch and yaw must all be zero for equilibrium (Trimmed flight).
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Stable Trim - Longitudinal (Axial)
• Small translational disturbances in axial, normal or side slip velocity must all result
in a return to the original trimmed equilibrium condition. This is also referred to as
pitch stability. An object moving through the air will experience drag that opposes
the motion.
• If angle of attack remains fixed, this drag will increase with speed. (Drag opposes
increase in speed).Thrust developed by engine is either constant with airspeed or
decrease with increasing air speed. (Drag increase in speed).
• In static equilibrium with regard to translational in the direction of motion, the
forward component of thrust must balance the drag (T = D)
• At constant angle of attack, a small increase in airspeed will result in (i) Increase in
Drag (ii)Either a decrease in Thrust or No change in Thrust
• Therefore, this force imbalance in the axial direction will result in a deceleration,
which will tend (initial tendency) to restore the airspeed to the original value.
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• Conversely, if airspeed is decreased by a small disturbance
with no change in angle of attack, the drag will become less
than the thrust and the aircraft will accelerate back (tends to)
to the equilibrium airspeed.
30
dD will oppose dV . If dV is positive; dD will act to
reduce/marginalize dV .If dV is negative; dD will tend to increase
the speed as in that case T > D.
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EQUILIBRIUM AND STABILITY
• The study of stability and control can be viewed as the problem of setting and
maintaining equilibrium.
• In steady level flight or steady climb, for example, the net force and moment on an
aircraft are zero and the aeroplane advances in unaccelerated motion.
• First, we define equilibrium: a body is in equilibrium when the net force and net
moment acting on it are both identically zero.
• An aircraft which is in equilibrium is said to be in trim, or trimmed.
• Stability relates to the tendency of a system to return to equilibrium if it is
disturbed in some way.
• Static stability refers to the instantaneous response of a system when perturbed:
• a statically stable system will initially move back towards its equilibrium state.
• A dynamically stable system will eventually recover its equilibrium, though not
necessarily immediately.
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STABILITY
• Figure 1.1 illustrates the two cases and also that of neutral stability, where
the system remains in the state to which it has been perturbed.
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STABILITY
• Figure 1.2 shows the notation for the analysis of aircraft stability. The two angles
shown are the incidence a and the inclination q.
• The second of these is the angle between a reference line on the aircraft and the
horizontal and in practice is of little interest to us in analyzing stability and control,
though it is important to a pilot, to whom it is known as “attitude”.
• The incidence, on the other hand, is of great interest and is the angle between the
reference line and the direction of flight. As a reference, we take the zero lift line
(ZLL) which is the angle of attack at which the lift is zero.
• This choice makes future analysis a little more compact, because then CL = aa, but
be careful in consulting other work since the reference system might be different.
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LONGITUDINAL STABILITY
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• where c.g. refers to “centre of gravity” and coordinates are taken in a frame of
reference attached to the aircraft. By taking moments about the centre of gravity,
we remove the effects of the mass distribution of the aircraft and (1.1c) is a
statement about the balance of aerodynamic moments only.
• If we are to relate scale-test data to full-size aircraft, this is a very useful thing. A
pilot brings an aircraft into, or out of, trim by modifying the aerodynamic moments
through use of the control surfaces; without worrying about details of the mass
distribution.
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CONTROL
• THRUST OF THE MOTOR:
• If P is the payload capacity of your drone (how much your drone can lift., M
is the number of motors, W is the weight of the drone itself, and H is the
hover throttle % ,Then, our thrust of the motors T will be as follows:
• The drone's payload capacity can be found with the following equation:
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Types of motors used for drones
• There are a few types of motors that are use to build drones.
• But as the drone needs to be thrust in the air to float, we should use some
powerful motors.
• The cheap, lightweight, small, and powerful motors used in drones are
Brushless DC motors (BLDC).
• For small drones, we do not use BLDC motors, but instead use small DC
gear motors.
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SPEED CONTROLLERS
• You cannot control the speed of motors of your drone unless you use speed
controllers.
• They enable you to control the voltage and current of the motors and hence
control the speed, which is the first priority to move the drone one place to
another, after floating in the air.
• You need to increase and decrease the speed of motor(s) to move the drone
forward, backward, left, or right.
• The connection between the controller board of the drone and ESC and the
battery/power distribution board is shown.
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CONTROL CONNECTION
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