Arduino controlled self-leveled

Quadcopter using PID controlling mechanism

Seare Girum Gebrehaweria

Department of Electronics and communication Engineering

Mekelle Institute of Technology

Jun 5, 2021
 Project proposal on Designing Arduino
controlled self -leveled Quadcopter using PID
controlling mechanism

ABSTRACT
In today modern technology is arriving so fast and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is one
amongst the fastest Technology emerging. Quadcopter which is additionally referred to as
Quadrotor is one among the UAV which basically have four motor and 4 propellers in
comparison to other RC flying vehicles the quad in addition as multi rotors comes with the most
stable platform. I have used an Arduino uno board for controlling the drone in flight mode
instead of a pre-programmed flight controller board to scale back cost efficiently.

INTRODUCTION
Technological advancements in fields of rescue operations similarly in remote package
delivering systems has led us to the event of a quadcopter. The quadcopter’s flight controller is
an Arduino microcontroller and its flight movements can be controlled using a transmitter-
receiver setup. The quadcopter can be used for the purpose of search & rescue operations as well
as for remote package delivering operations.
In the early development of the drones, they were used mainly in military issues like spying the
enemy zone and surveillance but due to great advancement in today drones are used in many
areas like filming, construction, guiding, traffic jam control, surveillance. Therefore, studying
and designing cost effective drones helps you to get versatile advantages.
Quadcopter unlike a traditional helicopter, relies on the four rotors to generate uplifting thrust by
working together. Each rotor lifts a quarter of the overall weight which allows us to use less
expensive and smaller motors. We control the movement of the quad by changing the amount of
power delivered to each rotor to its propellers.
In order for the balance to be maintained, the quad relies on the info it gathers from internal
sensors, and adjusts the power it sends to every motor in order that the complete drone is leveled.
To stay balanced all of the time the quad uses a sophisticated system, which usually makes the
adjustments autonomously, and this is often where I am designing the Arduino board and its
programming to really balance itself all of the time. This sort of self-stabilization will make the
drone quite accessible to fly, as you I won’t have to constantly worry about losing control and
damaging the quad.

Problem statement
Basically, the drone doesn’t balance in the air. Indeed, in sentimental physics we would tend to
believe that if we run the engines at the same speed that is enough to keep the drone at a stable
altitude. but in reality, the motors generate vibrations reflected on the cabin, the propellers
generate turbulence, the drone is never perfectly balanced, the wind blows in an archaic manner.
In short, the drone will inevitably tilt one side or the other side after a while. Therefore, what
system should be designed to take a correction while the drone is flying?

Mechanics of Displacement of the drone

It is the propellers by their rotation which allow the drone to raise in the air. First of all, let's
define the three-axis movement of the drone
1, x Roll – movement from left to right
2 y pitch – movement of backward and forward
3 z yaw – the rotation on its self
It is the propellers by their rotation which allow the drone to rise into the air, when they are
parallel to the ground, they generate a perpendicular force. In order for the drone to be able to
move in one direction it must be tilted in that direction.

Goals and objectives

General objectives
1) To understand and learn the basics of a quadcopter drone
2) To design a cost-effective quadcopter drone used for various purposes

Specific objectives
1) To implement PID controlling mechanism to correct the error during the flight of a
quad copter

Materials required
1) Frame
Frame is the Skeleton of the drone where all elements will be fixed. it can be different shapes
and be built in from different materials. Frame is both light and rigid and have a power bus for
connecting the battery to speed controllers.

2) Brushless Dc motors
Brushless motors spin at a higher speed and take less power. They have a KV rating which
specifies the RPM of the motor with no load.

3) ESC (electronic speed controller)

ESC regulates the electric motor speed according to the control signal applied. The control signal is
typically a PWM signal whose pulse width varies from 1ms to 2ms. A 1ms will turn off the motor and a
2ms pulse will affect its full speed.
4) Inertial measurement unit (IMU) MPU6050
an inertial measurement unit is a sensor which combines a 3- axis gyroscope and 3-axis accelerometer
integrated on a single chip. The gyroscope measures the rotational velocity or rate of change of angular
position over a time along the x,y,z axis. On the other hand the MPU 6050 accelerometer measures
gravitational acceleration along 3 axes and using some trigonometry math we can calculate the angle
where the sensor is positioned. combining the accelerometer and gyroscope data we can get very accurate
information about the sensor orientation.

5) Rc transmitter and Rc receiver

a radio control system is made up of two elements: the transmitter we hold in our hands and the receiver
we put in the drone. The drone transmitter reads the stick inputs and sends them through the air to your
receiver in real time. Once the receiver has this information it passes into the drone flight controller
which makes the drone move accordingly.
6) Lipo Battery
It is used as a power source for the quadcopter. I chose a lipo battery because it is not heavy and the
current levels are ideal for what you need. It is a lithium ion polymer rechargeable battery which uses a
lithium ion technology.

Block diagram
 Lipo Battery

ESC 1 Motor 1

ESC 2 Motor 2
Arduino uno
Microcontroller ESC 3 Motor 3

ESC 4 Motor 4

RC reciver
MPU
transmitter

Design and Methodology

Design and methodology is expressed as a flow diagram.

start

Design hardware for the quadcopter

Setup calibration

ECS calibration

Flight mode calibration

Error

Occurred
yes NO
 Test the quad copter functioning

Is it
accurate
NO
?

Yes

Stop

Conclusion
This research paper mainly focuses on controlling the flight of the quadcopter using the Arduino
as the main controller. This Arduino based quadcopter can be affordable in cheep amount for
alternative purposes like pesticide sprinkling, end to end delivery services and surveillance in
defense system. The main intent of this project is controlling the flight of the quad copter by
taking the corrections using PID controlling mechanism but for the future I have a plan to
include deep learning algorithms and image processing for using the quadcopter for versatile
purposes.

References
1) Vibha kishor , Ms. Swati singh , “ Design and development of Arduino uno based
quadcopter ”,2017
2) Benripley(2014) Arduino Quadcopter Flight Controller [Source code].
https://github.com/benripley/Arduino-Quadcopter
3) Lobodol(2019) Quadcopter PID implementation [Source code].
https://github.com/lobodol/drone-flight-controller
4) brown, j., 2021. How to Build Arduino Quadcopter Drone: Step-by-Step DIY Project.
[online] My Drone Lab. Available at: <https://www.mydronelab.com/blog/arduino-
quadcopter.html> [Accessed 1 June 2021].
5) Anurag singh Rajpot , Namrata Gadani, Sagar kalathia , “Development of Arduino Based
Quadcopter”, 2016
6) Charf Bennani karim , “The Design and Development of a general -purpose Drone” ,2020