Quadcopter Frame Research Articles

Quadcopter Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Structural Design Using an Integrated Approach of Topology Optimization and Additive Manufacturing

The performance of quadcopter frames, particularly in terms of weight and crash resistance, is significantly influenced by their structural design and manufacturing process. In this work, a methodology is proposed that integrates advanced principles of topology optimization (TO) and additive manufacturing (AM) techniques to optimize the frame structure for improved performance. First, an analysis is conducted to evaluate existing quadcopter frame configurations, identifying areas for improvement. Experimental evaluations of thrust and moment of motors are performed to assess the performance of the enhanced quadcopter frame, with a focus on advancing the design through computer-aided simulations of static structural analysis and impact tests. The TO technique is then employed to determine the optimal distribution of material within the frame, governed by constraints such as weight reduction and mechanical strength. The results demonstrate that the overall performance of a quadcopter frame is significantly improved by the proposed methodology, showcasing advancements in stability, weight reduction, and crashworthiness. The resulting optimized frame design is subsequently manufactured using AM methods, which offer advantages such as design flexibility and the ability to produce complex geometries. The findings of this study contribute to the field of quadcopter design and optimization by highlighting the synergies between TO and AM techniques. An avenue is offered for the development of lightweight and robust quadcopter frames, as the capabilities and performance of quadcopter systems are advanced. The insights gained from this research open up opportunities for further advancements in the design and manufacturing of UAVs.

Comparative study of the thermomechanical properties of natural fiber reinforced thermoplastic composites: A structural application for quadcopter design

The growing global demand for sustainability has led bio-sourced fibers to be identified as an alternative to synthetic fibers. In this paper, micromechanics and multiscale modeling approaches are used to predict the thermomechanical behavior of thermoplastic (polypropylene PP matrix) composites reinforced with four different natural fibers: flax, vegetal-technic, woodforce and a hybrid of flax and vegetal-technic, for random and aligned fiber orientations. Different microstructural orientations (0°, 45°, 90° and random) are generated and computed using the finite element method. Besides, an analytical modeling based on the Mori-Tanaka homogenization scheme is used to validate numerical results. The thermomechanical results showed a good agreement between the numerical computation and analytical approach for the aligned fiber orientations. In addition, the mechanical results obtained for the random fiber orientation remain in agreement with the experimental and analytical results reported in the literature. Besides, a user-defined material (UMAT) is implemented on tensile, compression and shear specimens. Through a virtual characterization, a material card for a 50% volume fraction of fiber is established for a flax-PP composite. Finally, an application made on a quadcopter frame, gives the failure indicators under thermomechanical loads at −20 °C and 55 °C, demonstrating the capability of plant fibers composites to withstand extreme conditions.

Development of an IoT-based firefighting drone for enhanced safety and efficiency in fire suppression

An uncontrolled fire poses severe threats to both humans and the environment, making firefighting a perilous and complex task. Traditional fire suppression methods are inefficient, costly, and without thorough testing, leading to delays in gaining control over fire outbreaks. This paper presents a novel firefighting drone aimed at mitigating risks to firefighters by extinguishing fires and providing real-time imaging, gas concentration and fire location data monitoring. The proposed intelligent quadcopter utilizes the Pixhawk PX4 microcontroller for precise control and the Pixhawk Telemetry system for data processing. The proposed device is constructed from an ultra-strength S500 Quadcopter frame, NodeMCU, Arduino Nano, various gas sensors, a servo motor to extinguish the fire and a camera to detect fire events in real time. Equipped with an FPV camera and a video transmitter, it transmits live video feed to the ground, enabling efficient navigation using the Flysky I6X controller. The intended position and height of the drone are controlled using an adaptive optimization technique known as fuzzy-based backstepping control. This article demonstrates the effectiveness of the device by collecting and analyzing gas emissions data from controlled burns of various materials. The drone successfully measured concentrations of CO, CO2, O3, SO2, and NO2 in affected areas, providing valuable insights for firefighting operations. Different levels of gases have been measured depending on the concentration from burning alcohol, clothes, plastic materials, paper, leaves, and so on. The novelty of this work lies in the development and comprehensive analysis of an IoT-based firefighting drone conducting extensive real-time experiments.

Design and Development of Quadcopter’s Frame

The purpose of this research is to obtain a design and prototype of quadcopter’s frame, which be developed further as a quadcopter that capable of carrying payload of 1.5 kg with flight time of more than 20 minutes. The design begins with estimating the values of Maximum Take-Off Weight (MTOW), required thrust, propeller dimensions, and wheelbase dimensions of the quadcopter. The results show the MTOW of the quadcopter was 5 kg, with each motor requiring of 2.5 kg of thrust per arm. The wheelbase dimension was 790 mm, and the propeller diameter of 17 inches. A wheelbase dimension was utilized to develop three conceptual frame designs for the quadcopter. The three conceptual designs were selected using a decision matrix table. The selected design was calculated for its structural strength by applying a load of 2.5 kg on each motor mounting. The results show the maximum stress value of 21.17 MPa, the maximum deflection of 3.5 mm, and safety factor of 22.44. Then, the prototype of quadcopter’s frame was manufactured. Therefore, the producing of prototype was measured the mass and deflection. Based on the measurements conducted, the quadcopter frame has an actual mass of 595 grams and a maximum deflection of 3.7 mm. The actual deflection value and the actual mass are close to the deflection and mass obtained from the calculation.

FABRICATION OF QUADCOPTER FOR AGRICULTURAL SPRAYING

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are being used more frequently for agricultural spraying as a result of their effectiveness and precision. This project involved building a quadcopter without sensors, cameras, or GPS for agricultural spraying. The quadcopter was created to rapidly and effectively cover a sizable amount of agricultural land, while also minimizing the usage of pesticides and the impact on the environment. The quadcopter's frame, which was made of lightweight materials to give strength and durability while minimizing the aircraft's overall weight, was used in its construction. The quadcopter's frame was made to accommodate four brushless motors, each of which had a propeller to give lift and movement. Four electronic speed controllers (ESCs) were used to control the motors' rotational speed and direction. The high-capacity lithium-polymer (LiPo) battery used by the quadcopter has sufficient power to run the motors and spraying system continuously. A tank, a pump that pressurized the liquid, and a nozzle that released the pressurized liquid over the crops as a fine mist made up the spraying system. A KK 2.1.5 circuit board served as the foundation for the flight control system, which was wired to the battery, four ESCs, and other components. The quadcopter's circuit board was configured to retain its position and altitude while flying steadily. Additionally, it provided buttons and an LCD panel for the user to use to change flying characteristics including the throttle, pitch, and roll. A handheld radio transmitter that interacted with a quadcopter receiver was used to control the aircraft.

The development of quadcopter using Arducopter APM 2.8 with autopilot for tracking point of drop-off goods

This research reported the development of a drone withinside the shape of a quadrotor to track positions over a certain geographic area on autopilot. The system includes an Ardupilot Mega (APM) 2.8 flight controller, Ublox NEO M8N GPS module with compass, Racerstar 920kV 2-4S Brushless Motor, Flysky Receiver FS-iA6B with FS-i6 Remote Control Transmitter, DJI F450 quadcopter frame kits with touchdown tools skid, and a LiPo Battery 3300 mAh 35C. The ground control system is set up and run through an open-source software so-known as Mission Planner. The tracking system is evolved as a payload together with BME280 sensors controlled through Arduino Uno R3 SMD. Google Maps from Mission Planner are set via waypoints. The readings from the BME280 barometer sensor are used to examine the right coordinates on the waypoint. This correction may be very crucial while a drone is implemented to a delivery system. The results show that the average error at every waypoint is 5%, which shows that one waypoint can be used as a drop-off point factor for goods to customers.

Developing a Quadcopter Frame and its Structural Analysis

Developing a Quadcopter Frame and its Structural Analysis

A NOVEL FLIGHT CONTROLLER DESIGN FOR MODULAR APPLICATIONS

A local flight controller was developed for modular applications based on the Pixhawk 1 flight controller with modifications to accommodate companion computer provision for future integration. This design is made for future modular applications, but for now, the functionality and performance of the local flight controller were tested and compared to the Pixhawk flight controller. A simple 3D printed enclosure was made to house the local flight controller for easier mounting on UAV frames. To compare the performance of the developed controller, two setups were made: local flight controller and Pixhawk 1 on separate quadcopter frames, and local flight controller and Pixhawk Cube on separate fixed-wing frames. The flight controllers made use of the Ardupilot firmware, specifically ArduCopter and ArduPlane in conducting the flight tests. Auto flight mode was used to have autonomous flights which were then used to compare the flight data between test setups. The desired position and actual position were compared for each flight controller, and their differences with the other flight controllers were compared to see the variation between the different controllers used. After analyzing the data, the local flight controller developed was proven able to produce comparable results with the Pixhawk flight controllers. The percent difference between the mean values of the Pixhawk 1 and the local flight controller were 3.7064% and 8.6128% using the quadcopter frame for Position X and Y, respectively, while for the Pixhawk Cube and the local flight controller, the values were 12.6866% and 1.1045% using the fixed-wing frame, respectively.

QUaRTM: A Quadcopter with Unactuated Rotor Tilting Mechanism capable of faster, more agile, and more efficient flight.

We present QUaRTM - a novel quadcopter design capable of tilting the propellers into the forward flight direction, which reduces the drag area and therefore allows for faster, more agile, and more efficient flight. The vehicle can morph between two configurations in mid-air, including the untilted configuration and the tilted configuration. The vehicle in the untilted configuration has a higher pitch torque capacity and a smaller vertical dimension. The vehicle in the tilted configuration has a lower drag area, leading to a higher top speed, higher agility at high speed, and better flight efficiency. The morphing is accomplished without any additional actuators beyond the four motors of a quadcopter. The rigid connections between the quadcopter frame and the quadcopter arms are replaced with sprung hinges. This allows the propellers to be tilted when high thrusts are produced, and recover to the untilted configuration when the thrusts are brought low. The effectiveness of such a vehicle is demonstrated by running experiments on a prototype vehicle with a shape similar to a regular quadcopter. Through the use of tilting, the vehicle is shown to have a 12.5% higher maximum speed, better high-speed agility as the maximum crash-free cruise speed increased by 7.5%, and a better flight efficiency as the power consumption has dropped by more than 20% in the speed range of 15-20ms-1.

Analisis Kekuatan Tarik Komposit Termoseting Hibrid Serat Bambu -E-Glass/ Epoxy Unidirectional 0° Vs Hibrid Serat Bambu E-Glass WR/ Epoxy dan Aplikasinya Pada Struktur Frame Quadkopter

The uses of natural fiber in composite structures have increased recently. These fibers are considered ‘green’ and foreseen as an alternative fiber substitute in the furture. The aim of the research is to obtain the mechanical characteristics of the hybrid thermosetting composites with bamboo-E-Glass fiber reinforcements by using epoxy as matrix. The fibers were arranged to make a unidirectional 0° and bidirectional (0°/90°). Composite manufacturing method used hand lay-up and vacuum bagging. Tensile test conducted according to standard size ASTM D3039, and the results were analyzed using two parameters Weibull distribution. The results showed that the hybrid thermosetting bamboo-E-Glass composites have potentials to be made as quadcopter frame structures.

Development of quadcopter for atmospheric data collection

This research aims to develop a quadrotor system as unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAVs, or drones) for monitoring atmospheric conditions in a targeted area. The system consists of an APM 2.8 arducopter flight controller, Ublox NEO M8N GPS module with compass, Racerstar 920kV 2-4S Brushless Motor, Flysky Receiver FS-iA6B with FS-i6 Remote Control Transmitter, DJI F450 quadcopter frame kits with tall landing gear skid, and a LiPo Battery 3300 mAh 35C. The system is set up and run through a Mission Planner. As for monitoring atmospheric conditions, the system consists of an Arduino Uno ATmega328P, BME280 sensors, and several modules (DS3231 Real-Time Clock (RTC), micro SD card, and 16×2 LCD). Our vehicle with a total weight of 1 kg can fly into space and maneuver to an altitude of more than 200 meters in an average of 10 minutes. Atmospheric conditions such as air temperature, relative humidity, air pressure, altitude, and precipitable water vapor can be measured and logged properly from drones. By this development, the system can be applied in the future to detect or measure weather extremes, air pollution, or monitoring aerial topography automatically when equipped with gas sensors and cameras, respectively.

Проектирование рамы автономного летательного аппарата с применением композиционных материалов

The paper considers approaches to creating a new type of unmanned aircrafts - quadcopters. It is stated that the efficiency of a quadcopter directly depends on its frame design and the structural materials used. The approaches to designing the aircraft frame using computer-aided design tools (SolidWorks package) are described. The stress maps obtained during the strength study for the frame beam made of carbon fiber allow asserting a large margin of structural strength. The strength calculation carried out predetermined the need to take into account the influence of additional factors (the air flow created by the traction screws). The existing restrictions on the maximum size of the rotating propellers predetermined the design of the quadcopter frame taking into account the maximum number of possible aerodynamic effects that determine the stability of flight characteristics by minimizing interference from air turbulence, as well as from possible natural phenomena. The designed quadcopter frame has special aerodynamic surfaces that allow for a stable flight path in a volatile air environment. The generated torque is determined by the characteristics of the traction screw motors. The influence of the isosurface air flow on the design of the quadcopter was evaluated.

Structural Integrity Study for a Quadcopter Frame to Be Deployed for Pest Control

Structural Integrity Study for a Quadcopter Frame to Be Deployed for Pest Control

An FE–DMN method for the multiscale analysis of short fiber reinforced plastic components

In this work, we propose a fully coupled multiscale strategy for components made from short fiber reinforced composites, where each Gauss point of the macroscopic finite element model is equipped with a deep material network (DMN) which covers the different fiber orientation states varying within the component. These DMNs need to be identified by linear elastic precomputations on representative volume elements, and serve as high-fidelity surrogates for full-field simulations on microstructures with inelastic constituents.We discuss how to extend direct DMNs to account for varying fiber orientation, and propose a simplified sampling strategy which significantly speeds up the training process. To enable concurrent multiscale simulations, evaluating the DMNs efficiently is crucial. We discuss dedicated techniques for exploiting sparsity and high-performance linear algebra modules, and demonstrate the power of the proposed approach on an injection molded quadcopter frame as a benchmark component. Indeed, the DMN is capable of accelerating two-scale simulations significantly, providing possible speed-ups of several magnitudes.

Optimization of quadcopter frame using generative design and comparison with DJI F450 drone frame

This research accentuates to explore designing the drone frame using Generative design tools. A quadcopter is designed using Autodesk generative design embedded in Fusion 360. The simulation results such as static stress-strain, modal frequency and displacement results of additive manufactured quadcopter are compared with a DJI flame wheel F450 drone frame. The generative designed frame has minimum displacement compared to traditional designed drone frame. It is observed that generative designing technique along with additive manufactured frames yields better frames with improved resistance to fracture and minimum displacement compared to traditional designed DJI flame wheel F450 drone frame.

Modelling and PID control system integration for quadcopter DJI F450 attitude stabilization

<p><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">In this paper we focus on the overall overview of the mathematical modelling of the DJI F450 UAV quadcopter, the hardware and software system integration based on PID control system for the attitude feedback. The parameter specification of the DJI F450 is fed into the mathematical model and implement a basic PID for the system. Future research using the DJI F450 model can benefit from this observation by implementing the modelling and tune in their own variable that varies, such as the overall of their weight. The data of PID control system simulation using the quadcopter frame model type DJI F450 parameter. The mathematical model for the quadcopter modelled DJI F450 is developed using Newton-Euler method. Altitude data for the control system is obtain from the analysis data of the Simulink simulation. The simulation is done using the Simulink toolbox inside the MATLAB software. From this paper, we can more understand the step involves in making a full control system of a quadcopter. The mathematical model for other type of quadcopter model can be implemented using the steps with their own parameter and achieve fast development.</span></p>

The Design and Implementation of a Custom Platform for the Experimental Tuning of a Quadcopter Controller.

This paper describes the development process of the quadcopter-based unmanned flying platform, designed for testing and experimentation purposes. The project features custom-made hardware, which includes the prototype quadcopter frame and the flight controller, and software solutions, such as control loop setup. The article specifies the controller tuning used for the initialization of the flight stabilization system and presents the final results of the quadcopter performance evaluation.

Experimental Evaluation of the Shadowing of a Planar Antenna Caused by a Quadcopter Frame

Abstract The use of mobile data transfer can significantly increase the range of the remote-controlled operation of multirotor aerial vehicles. The planar antennas of ready-to-use 3G/LTE cellular communication dongles provide a low-cost and lightweight communication solution. In this paper, antenna shadowing caused by a quadcopter frame is experimentally investigated. The communication module is a 3G/LTE “Huawei 3372h” dongle with two planar built-in antennas and a receiver diversity function. The quadcopter frame is a widely used “F450” with Nylon arms and a PCB centre. It has been found that in order to minimize the antenna shadowing effect, planar antennas should be installed at the bottom of the frame, in parallel with the frame, with an air gap not less than the distance to the outer boundary of the reactive Near Field (NF).

Structural Analysis of Quadcopter Frame

Abstract Quadcopter is an advance highly maneuverable aircraft which has a simple design and structure. It has high load carrying capacity and other characteristics. Quadcopter is one of the UAV (Unmanned aerial vehicle) which is used to lift, carry, observe, rescue and collect data from one place to another in lesser time and without taking much space and cost. It can be used for surveillance purpose and military operations. The static and dynamic characteristics of the structure of quadcopter have been analyzed by determining and analyzing the dynamics of the quadcopter. This paper describes the overall design of quadcopter frame model, then analyzing the frame with commercial Finite element code ANSYS 18.0 (Academic research). Selecting the necessary material and structure that meets the strength and stiffness of requirement of the system

Developing of the smart quadcopter with improved flight dynamics and stability

The cause of the rapid growth and enhancement in the dynamics of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is due to its vast utilization in every-day application. The major advantage of UAVs is no risk of human life with secure and suitable surveillance. The UAV facilitates in live video streaming and wide aerial coverage for monitoring. In this project, a type of UAV named quadcopter has been developed. The work mainly consists of design of the quadcopter frame, interfacing of the brushless DC motors and bluetooth module with the microcontroller, and adjustment of the roll, pitch, and yaw for keeping the smooth flight dynamics by flight controller board containing MEMS sensors, i.e., gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer, and pressure sensors. The repeated simulation and testing has been carried out in MATLAB for the mathematical modeling of the dynamics of the system, i.e., Euler method for solving differential equation for finding system states, computation of the rotation matrix R and functions to convert from an angular velocity vector w to the derivatives of roll, pitch, and yaw. The improvement in the parameters of the flight dynamics and removing the errors to gain stability in the frame are the main core issues which have been achieved by the several iterations. A closed-loop control system, i.e., PID controller, has been simulated and carefully designed for stabilizing the actual angle from the sensors and desired angle from the pilot. The reduced error rate of 0.05 degrees after every 10 s was achieved.