VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY

HO CHI MINH UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

FACULTY OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT OF MECHATRONICS

MECHATRONICS CAPSTONE DESIGN PROJECT

DESIGN AND CONTROL OF A QUADROTOR

Student’s name: Nguyễn Minh Hùng

Student ID: 1952736

Instructor: Professor Đoàn Thế Thảo

HO CHI MINH CITY, 2023

 FL014

HCM City University of Technology SOCIALIST REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering Independence - Freedom – Happiness
No.: /ĐHBK-CK

FINAL YEAR PROJECT PROPOSAL

(This form must be appeared at the first page in the report of the final year project)

Student’s name: NGUYỄN MINH HÙNG Student’s ID: 1952736

Program: Mechatronics Engineering Class: CC19CDT
1. Topic:
CHẾ TẠO, ĐIỀU KHIỂN MÔ HÌNH QUADCOPTER ROBOT
DESIGN AND CONTROL OF QUADCOPTER ROBOT
Inputs:
- Size of Quadcopter: 350x350x150mm
- Speed: less than 15 m/s
2. Expected outcomes:
- Overview of a Quadrotor.
- Mechanical design for the robot.
- Analyze, design electric and electronics circuit for the system.
- A physical testbed for evaluating the proposed system.
- Technical drawings: 4 , including:
+ 1 A0 drawing, about: Conceptual design
+ 1 A0 drawing, about: Mechanical design
+ 1 A0 drawing, about: Electric and electronics design
+ 1 A0 drawing, about: Control algorithm
3. Starting date: 30/01/2023
4. Ending date: 12/05/2023
5. Supervisor: Responsibility:
- Đoàn Thế Thảo , Department of Mechatronics 100%

The proposal has been screened by the Head/Deputy Head of the department.

Jan. 30th, 2023

Head of Department Main supervisor

Đoàn Thế Thảo

FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Faculty:
Department:
Date of defense:
Evaluation grade:
Archived place:
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The four years that I’ve spent studying Mechatronics Engineering has been a very
stressful and challenging period, when I have to try very hard to not just understand the
material taught in class, but also expanding my knowledge from that foundational stepping
stone and ultimately, turning that knowledge to become my own through participating in
various project, both within the curiculum, during the summer internship and in real-life.
These works have given me valuable lessons about important skills of working and
communicating in a group, withh each member leading a defined role, but also seeking
guidance from other people inside and outside the group. I also learn about the necessity
of expectation management, where I must set challenging, but still realistic goal so that the
project can be completed on time, on budget and with deliverable results. For the project
that unfortunately doesn’t turn into fruition, the teachers have also generously given me
feedback about what went wrong, what can be improved and most importantly, an
opportunity for me to reflect on my own works, all without negatively impeding my
learning process.

This capstone project is the proof of my growth through those 4 years, and encompass
all of the disciplines and knowledge that’s expected for a mechatronics engineer. I’d like
to thank all of the teachers and faculty staff who have helped me come this far and make it
happens, and the friends that I’ve the pleasure to meet, both those that have accompanied
me through all 4 years and those who I met along the way, I’ve had many memorable
experiences with them. I’d like to specially thank Professor Đoàn Thế Thảo, who have
given me this wonderful project, who have guided me from start to end and whose tips that
have helped me complete the project.

Nguyễn Minh Hùng

 TABLE OF CONTENTS
Table of contents ...................................................................................................................
List of figures.........................................................................................................................
List of tables ..........................................................................................................................
CHAPTER 1: Overview .................................................................................................. 1
1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 1
1.2 General information about quadrotor..................................................................... 2
1.3 Products available on the market ........................................................................... 9
1.4 Project goal: ......................................................................................................... 12
CHAPTER 2: POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS PROPOSAL AND SELECTION ................ 14
2.1 Mechanical properties: ......................................................................................... 14
2.2 Electronics:........................................................................................................... 20
2.3 Control system: .................................................................................................... 25
2.4 Diagram of the chosen system options: ............................................................... 26
CHAPTER 3: Mechanical design .................................................................................. 28
3.1 Calculate frame size ............................................................................................. 28
3.2 Calculating propulsion system ............................................................................. 30
3.3 Calculating frame arm dimensions ...................................................................... 37
CHAPTER 4: ELECTRONICS DESIGN ..................................................................... 41
4.1 Selecting electronics components ........................................................................ 41
CHAPTER 5: CONTROL DESIGN ............................................................................. 43
5.1 Attitude representation: ........................................................................................ 43
5.2 Attitude estimation: .............................................................................................. 44
5.3 Quadrotor dynamics modelling: .......................................................................... 46
5.4 Control loop design: ............................................................................................. 50
CHAPTER 6: Conclusion .............................................................................................. 56
6.1 General assessment: ............................................................................................. 56
6.2 Project limitation: ................................................................................................. 57
6.3 Future development: ............................................................................................ 57
References ........................................................................................................................ 59
 LIST OF FIGURES
Picture 1. Example of a quadrotor ...................................................................................1
Picture 2. Forces applied on a quadrotor in hovering flight ............................................6
Picture 3. Forces applied on a quadrotor in longtitudinal translation flight ....................7
Picture 4. Forces applied on a quadrotor in lateral translation flight ..............................8
Picture 5. Forces applied on a quadrotor in yawing rotation flight .................................9
Picture 6. Fully assembled, ready-to-flight DJI Mavic Mini ........................................10
Picture 7. Fully assembled, ready-to-flight Autel Evo Nano ........................................11
Picture 8. Quadcopter frame basic dimensions .............................................................14
Picture 9. Common quadcopter frame configuration ....................................................16
Picture 10. Example of a unibell BLDC motor .............................................................18
Picture 11. Propeller nominal chord length ...................................................................19
Picture 12. Common quadcopter propeller configuration .............................................20
Picture 13. DJI integrated navigation sensor .................................................................20
Picture 14. A 4-cells LiPo battery pack with XT-30 and balance charging connector .21
Picture 15. RF is available in small module ..................................................................23
Picture 16. Omnidirectional antenna with U.FL connector for long range transmission24
Picture 17. Cross configuration diagram .......................................................................26
Picture 18. Control architecture diagram.......................................................................27
Picture 19. System control loop diagram ......................................................................27
Picture 20. BLDC motor equivalent circuit ...................................................................33
Picture 21. ESC input-output voltage and current .........................................................34
Picture 22. CFRP orthotropic property ..........................................................................37
Picture 23. CFRP layup with isotropic property ...........................................................38
Picture 24. Frame arm deflection ..................................................................................39
Picture 25. Quadrotor design 3D model ........................................................................40
Picture 26. Quadrotor flight controller ..........................................................................41
Picture 27. RF RX module ............................................................................................42
Picture 28. Quadrotor’s frame convention ....................................................................47
Picture 29. Fitted curve of the quadratic function for input command to thrust ...........49
Picture 30. Attitude control loop diagram .....................................................................50
 LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Quadcopter classifications based on MTOW and impact risk ..........................3
Table 2. Specifications of some popular commercial quadrotors .................................12
Table 3. Wheelbase of common mini quadrotors ..........................................................14
Table 4. Specifications of common quadrotor’s frame material ...................................17
Table 5. Parameters of chosen quadrotor’s components ...............................................36
Table 6. Value of quadrotor’s dynamics physical quantities ........................................53
 CHAPTER 1: OVERVIEW

This section presents the general overview of the capstone topic “Design and control
of a Quadcopter Robot”, with information about the motivation of the project as well as
examples available. From that design requrements are inferred, which will act as guidance
for the ensuing design process.

1.1 Introduction

Picture 1. Example of a quadrotor (STM Kargu)

In recent years there has been a surge in interest about quadcopter, for its many potential
usage in commercial, military and recreational purposes. Despite being one of many
configurations in the multirotor categories, quadcopter is the most proliferated design for
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) due to its simplicity, light-weightedness while still being
able to carry more payload than smaller tricopter and coaxial helicopter design. Many
civilian applications, such as aerial photography, video recording and sports such as
quadcopter racing has benefited from the rapid expansion in the drone communities and
drone manufacturers for civil use.

However, due to the increasingly ubiquity of quadcopter in society, the need for better
control of drone usage to limit the risk of accident. Authorities in many countries have
enacted more stringent regulation on the use of quadcopter for civilian activities. For
example, in the United States, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has released a
regulation that requires user of drones with maximum take-off weight of at least 250 grams

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to become a registered UAV pilot to be eligible to operate said drones [1]. Authorities in
many countries, such as China, South Korea, Japan, or multinational organization such as
the EU have similar requirement about drone’s maximum takeoff weight. Drone
manufacturers of products that weight 250 grams or heavier must also install a remote
identifier device, which broadcasts publicly the information about the owner of the drone,
its position and other basic information for everybody to view. Due to the complex
requirements to own and operate a drone weighting more than 250 grams, most of the focus
is now on the design and manufacturing of sub-250 grams drone to ensure that the drone
still retains most functionalities of heavier drone, have similar flight time while still being
compliant with regulation [2]. To design and control a drone in sub-250 grams is also the
main goal of this capstone project.

1.2 General information about quadrotor

a) Definition of quadrotor
Quadrotor belongs to the family of unmanned aerial vehicels (UAVs), which refers
to aerial powered vehicles that doesn’t carry human operators, can be operated either
autonomously or remotely and capable to carry out various objectives such as aerial
observation, carrying payload… [3] A quadrotor is a system of electrical-mechanical
components, consists of an airframe, propulison system, a flight controller, communication
system and ground control system. It is propelled by four motors with propellers attached,
which rotates at high speed to generate lift perpendicular to the quadrotor’s body and propel
it upward [4].

There are many ways to classify a quadrotor, the most common metric is maximum
takeoff weight (MTOW), refer to the weight of the quadrotor with all components
necessary for flying and its payload. This metric correlates to the expected kinetic energy
at impact when the quadrotor crashes, which is the primary factor affecting flight safety
and is the motivation behind many regulations that limit unregistered drone weight.
Dalamagkidis et al [5] has constructed a model used to estimated fatalities after a ground
impact, based on impact kinetic energy which in turns based on MTOW of quadrotor.

2
Based on the requirement of maintaing an expected fatalities of less than 10−7 per hour
(less than 1 in 10 million people around the world dies to drone crashes every hour),
categories specified in table 1 was derived. In the model, drone belongs to the micro and
mini categories are so light that they pose little threat of fatality or serious injury after an
impact.
Name MTOW TG1 Notes
Micro <0,5kg 102 Most countries don’t regulate this type since it poses
minimal danger to human life or property
3
Mini 0,5 - 1kg 10 This category usually corresponds to RC aircraft
4
Small 1 – 13,5kg 10 N/A
Light 13,5 - 242kg 10 5 N/A
6
Normal 242 – 4332kg 10 These vehicles usually correspond to normal aircraft
7
Large >4332kg 10 These vehicles usually correspond to transport category
Table 1. Quadcopter classifications based on MTOW and impact risk. 𝑇𝐺1 is the
minimum interval between crashes in minutes
Although MTOW provides good basis for aircraft classification when operational
safety is a major concern, quadrotor classification based on maximum flight altitude is also
a useful criterion, as it dictates collision avoidance requirement due to the possibility of
sharing similar altitude with manned aircraft. A classification based on altitude by
Dalamagkidis is presented as followed:

- Very low altitude/Line of sight (VLA/LOS): operating in class G airspace and is

typically in altitude less than 120m, with the operator always within visual contact with the
aircraft. Doesn’t require a transponder to broadcast its information and air-traffic-control
(ATC) communication.

- Very low altitude/Beyond line of sight (VLA/BLOS): similar to above class, but with
the possibility that the aircraft is flown out of sight. Requires a transponder but doesn’t
require ATC communicaiton.

- Medium altitude (MA): operating in class A through E airspace. Requires transponder

and ATC communication.

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 - Very high altitude (VHA): operating in class E airspace above FL600 (5,5km above
ground). Requires transponder and ATC communication.

Another popular metric to classify quadrotor is based on its level of autonomy [6].
Any unmanned aircraft must have some control algorithm to balance itself, as human
control introduces to much latency for effective stabilization, and current trend in
autonomy is ever-increasing for newer quadcopter with better electronics and sensors. A
specification, called autonomous control level (ACL), sought to systematically categorize
drone based on requirements like situational awareness, analysis, coordination, decision
making and degree of human involvement. A simple overview of the classificaiton is
outlined below:

- Remotely piloted: a certified pilot remotely controls the quadrotor either within line of
sight or with feedback telemetry.

- Remotely operated (semi-autonomous): the quadrotor is given high-level command

such as following route, tracking objects… and having its performance monitored by
ground-level personnel. The flying is performed by the drone, but all decision-making is
delegated to a human.

- Fully autonomous: the quadrotor is given task and is capable of self-determining how
to accomplish them, even with unforseen events arise. It can also perfom self-diagnostic
and rectify potential problems.

b) Dynamics of quadrotor

A quadcopter has four control inputs, which are four propellers angular speed that
can be varied independently. Unlike similar rotorcraft like helicopter, which keeps its rotor
speed constant while varying the propeller’s pitch angle to achieve lateral ang longtitudinal
movement, a quadcopter relies on the rapid variation of individual propeller speed to
perform movement. Because of the discrepancy betweeen the number of control inputs (4
propellers speed) to the 6 degrees of freedom of 3-dimensional movement (translational
movement along the x, y and z-axis and rotational movement roll, pitch, yaw) that the

4
quadrotor performs, some of the movements are coupled together, namely: the
longtitudinal translation is coupled with pitch movement, and lateral movement is coupled
with roll movement [7]. The description of possible quadrotor movement is as follow:

- Hovering movement:

As shown by picture 2, a hovering quadcopter has all propellers spinning at the same
speed, with motor 1 and 3 rotating counter-clockwise, and motor 2 and 4 rotating
clockwise. Each motor generates two forces: a vertical thrust perpendicular to the
quadrotor’s body and a reaction torque, which is of opposite direction to the rotation of the
propeller. In hovering condition, the reaction torque τ has the same magnitude for all 4
motors, and torque generated by pair 2 and 4 has the opposite direction to pair 1 and 3, thus
the quadrotor’s body experiences net zero torque:

|τ1 | = |τ2 | = |τ3 | = |τ4 |

τz = τ1 + τ3 − τ2 − τ4 = 0

The total thrust F of all four motors is equal to the quadrotor’s weight if it stays hover
at the same altitude, and will move upward or downward if the thrust is larger or smaller
than the weight:

F1 + F2 + F3 + F4 − mg = ma

5
 Picture 2. Forces applied on a quadrotor in hovering flight

- Longtitudinal movement:

As shown by picture 3, if the pair of motor 1 and 4 has its speed reduced by a certain
amount, and the speed of motor 2 and 3 increased by the same amount, a discrepancy
between the thrust generated by motor 1 and 4 and motor 2 and 3 will induce a pitch torque
on the quadrotor’s body, making rotates around the x-axis and move longtitudinally:

τy = F2 + F3 − F1 + F4

The positive direction of the movement is determined by the right-hand rule around the
predefined principal axes. Because the total thrust generated is unchange, the quadrotor
will hold its altitude and will only move on the x-axis.

6
 Picture 3. Forces applied on a quadrotor in longtitudinal translation flight

- Lateral movement:

As shown in picture 4, if the pair of motor 1 and 2 has its speed reduced by a certain
amount, and the speed of motor 3 and 4 increased by the same amount, a discrepancy
between the thrust generated by motor 1 and 2 and motor 3 and 4 will induce a roll torque
on the quadrotor’s body, making rotates around the y-axis and move laterally:

τx = F2 + F3 − F1 + F4

The positive direction of the movement is determined by the right-hand rule around the
predefined principal axes. Because the total thrust generated is unchange, the quadrotor
will hold its altitude and will only move on the y-axis.

7
 Picture 4. Forces applied on a quadrotor in lateral translation flight

- Yawing movement:

The quadrotor performs this movement to change its relative heading. As shown in
picture 5, if the pair of motor 2 and 4 has its speed reduced by a certain amount, and the
speed of motor 1 and 3 increased by the same amount, the net reaction torque on the
quadrotor’s body will be larger than zero, making it rotates clockwise around the z-axis:

|τ1 | = |τ3 | ≠ |τ2 | = |τ4 |

τz = τ1 + τ3 − τ2 − τ4 ≠ 0

The positive direction of the movement is determined by the right-hand rule around the
predefined principal axes. However, because the reduction of thrust generated by motor 2
and 4 is compensated by the increase of thrust generated by motor 1 and 3 by the same

8
amount, there is no torque around the x and y-axis, and the total thrust stays the same, so
the quadrotor will experience no translational movement.

Picture 5. Forces applied on a quadrotor in yawing rotation flight

1.3 Products available on the market

Some companies have developed commercial quadcopter for aerial viewing purposes,
of which examples that satisfy the sub-250 grams category includes the DJI Mavic Mini
and Autel EVO Nano.

a) DJI Mavic Mini

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 Picture 6. Fully assembled, ready-to-flight DJI Mavic Mini
Design and manufactured by the Chinese company DJI [8], Mavic Mini is a foldable,
aerial photography quadrotor equipped with camera mounted on a 3-axis gimbal. Some
of its basic features are listed as follow:

- Battery: Li-ion 2 cells battery with max charge at 8,4V and 2400mAh capacity. It
weights 100g and provides 28 minutes flight time at 14km/h in windless condition.

- Obstacle avoidance: downward looking ultrasonic sensor, operation range 0,5-10m.

- Wireless transmission: it can transmit recorded video realtime through Wifi to the
user phone, and is controlled with hand-held controller through RF at either 2.4GHz
(2km range) or 5.8GHz (500m range).

- Positioning: equipped with GNSS chip that can use GPS and GLONASS. Its
accuracy is listed in the table below.

- INS: integrated accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, barometer chip.

- Frame: both its body frame and propeller are made of injection molded plastic.
Additional propguard can be installed for safety, but MTOW will exceed 250g.

- Advanced functions: return to home, objects tracking.

- Wind resistance: level 4 (up to 8m/s).

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 b) Autel EVO Nano

Picture 7. Fully assembled, ready-to-flight Autel Evo Nano

Autel EVO Nano [9] is a foldable aerial photography quadrotor, similar to the DJI
Mavic. Some of its basic features are listed as follow:

- Battery: LiPo 2 cells battery with max charge at 8,8V and 2250mAh capacity. It
weights 82g and provides 28 minutes flight time at 14km/h in windless condition.

- Obstacle avoidance: downward looking ultrasonic sensor, operation range 0,5-10m.

- Wireless transmission: it can transmit recorded video realtime through Wifi to the
user phone/controller, and is controlled with hand-held controller through RF at either
2,4GHz (10km range, unobstructed enviroment) or 5,8Ghz.

- Positioning: equipped with GNSS chip that can use GPS. Its accuracy is listed in the
table below.

- INS: integrated accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, barometer chip.

- Frame: its body frame and propeller are made of injection molded plastic.

- Advanced functions: return to home, objects tracking.

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 - Wind resistance: level 5 (up to 10,7m/s).

Summarization of the quadrotors’ specifications are listed below:

DJI Mavic Autel EVO Nano
MTOW (g) 249 249
Wheelbase (mm) 213 231
Dimension LxWxH (mm) 245x289x155 260x325x155
Max vertical speed (m/s) 4 5
Max speed, no wind (m/s) 13 15
Max flight time (minutes) 28 28
Max flight distance (km) N/A 16.8
Max service ceiling (km) 3 3
Max tilt angle (degree) 30 25
Tilt accuracy (angle) ±0.01 ±0.003
Hovering vertical accuracy (m) ±0.1 (with vision) ±0.1 (with vision)
±1.5 (with GPS) ±0.5 (with GPS)
Table 2. Specifications of some popular commercial quadrotors
1.4 Project goal:
To design, control quadcopter robot with take-off weight less than 250 grams.
a) Objectives:
- Research about examples design and potential solutions. This is the first step in defining
the problem:
+ Suggest probable solutions to the problem: mechanical, electrical, control.
+ Assess proposed solutions and choose the most optimal.
- Design mechanical system: with the chosen mechanical solutions, designing the
mechanical systems:
+ Determine the size, material, general dimensions of the quadcopter.
+ Choose propeller and motor that can achieve required maximum speed and altitude.
+ Perform weight optimizing of the systems.
- Design electrical system: based on the selected electrical solutions, integrate the
mechanical and electrical into a complete system:
+ Select a motor driver that best fit the chosen motors.
+ Select a controller that can process input from sensor and control loop with high
frequency to control the quadcopter.

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+ Select communication system that’s suitable for low latency, long range application.
+ Choose battery that allows longest flight time
- Design control system: synthesize a control loop with the following task:
+ Design controller that can stabilize the quadcopter with chosen settling time and steady
state error.
- Testing and review.
b) Design requirements:
- Takeoff weight: less than 250g.
- Allowable frame arms deflection: 0.1 degree.
- Max size of the quadcopter: 350x350x150mm.
- Max altitude: 10m.
- Max flight speed: 10m/s.
- Max flight time: 10 minutes.
- Max tilt angle: 25 degrees.
- Can stabilizes and hover without human input.

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 CHAPTER 2: POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS PROPOSAL AND SELECTION

2.1 Mechanical properties:

a) Sizing:
The size of a quadcopter can be expressed as wheelbase [10], which is the diagonal
length between two opposite motors, from there a quadcopter can be classified into a
class size:
Wheelbase Propeller size (diameter)
90 – 120mm 2”
120 – 150mm 3”
150 – 180mm 3,5 - 4”
180 – 220mm 5”
220 – 250mm 6”
>280mm 7”
Table 3. Wheelbase of common mini quadrotors
From this table, when the wheelbase of a quadcopter frame is determined, the most
adequate size of the propeller can be chosen.

Picture 8. Quadcopter frame basic dimensions (r: propeller radius, R: distance of motor
to center of quadrotor, wheelbase: distance between two opposite motors)

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 - Advantages of frame with large wheelbase: more space for installation of electronics
such as RF, GPS antenna, better airflow for cooling, can carry more payload…

- Disadvantages of frame with large wheelbase:

+ Larger frame creates cascade requirement (larger propellers, larger motors, more
capable motor driver, larger battery…), further increase size.

+ Longer propeller response slower to command, which makes the quadrotor’s

dynamics more sluggish, this has negative effect on controllability as quadrotor, though
mechanically simple, depends on rapid variation of propeller’s speed to change thrust and
moment.

+ Longer propellers are more susceptible to “blade flapping”, which is the upward and
downward movement of the rotorblade. Quadrotor’s propellers are usually fixed pitch,
therefore this effect is more pronounced, as it can’t vary the propellers pitch to limit the
transmission of aerodynamics force to the motor, and can cause damage to the motor hub
or the frame.

Conclusion: due to the project’s goal to design a sub-250g quadrotor, a large airframe
is unneeded to satisfy the requirements. However small frame will place constraint on the
propulsion system used, which will limit flight duration. Therefore, the chosen frame size
is 4” or 5” as it’s balance between flight duration and size. The specific size will be
calculatrf in later section.

b) Frame configuration:

There are 4 commons quadcopter frame configurations: X, Stretch X, Plus, and H

[11].

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Picture 9. Common quadcopter frame configuration (left to right: X, stretch X, Plus, H)
- Ring configuration (H frame):

+ Advantages: the front and back arms are perpendicular to the drone fuselage, the
propellers are spaced far away from the fuselage, which allows more internal space.
The propeller also doesn’t obstruct the field of view of the camera, allows better aerial
viewing and photography.

+ Disadvantage: the frame is susceptible to vibration due to longer distance of the

motor to body. Additional bar that connects between motors can be used, which
increase frame’s stiffness but at increse weight and reduce maneuverability.

- Cross configuration (X frame): two booms cross at the center, and the motor’s are
placed symmetrically at the end of the four arms, the middle of the frame can be
placed with electronics or payload.

+ Advantages: has balanced moment of inertia on roll and pitch axes, allows rapid
movement. It’s also dynamically more robust, as all 4 motors contribute to the torque
that moves the quadrotor

+ Disadvantages: as all 4 motors thrust is involved, the thrust mixing algorithms is

more complex.

- Stretch X: allows ample internal space for more payload and components.
Commonly seen on delivery drone. Otherwise similar to X frame

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 - Plus configuration: two booms are perpendicular to each other. Placement is
similar to cross configuration.

+ Advantages: simple to control and allows rapid movement, simpler mixing

algorithm as it only requires two motors to create torque.

+ Disadvantages: propellers placement means this configuration is unsuited for

aerial photography and viewing as they locate on the movement axes of the quadrotor.
Also dynamically less robust than cross configuration due to fewer motors involve in
movement.

Conclusion: choose cross configuration as it’s balance and permitts dynamics

movement.

c) Material:

The material chosen to make the quadrotor’ frame must be extremely lightweight
while having high stiffness. Wide variety of material has been used to construct the
quadcopter’s frame. Properties of some material are listed below:
Carbon Fiber Fiberglass Polycarbonate Acrylic
3
Density (kg/m ) 1384 1938 1384 1107
Tensile modulus (GPA) 65 19 5 3
Tensile strength (MPA) 827 103-345 55-110 5-76
Table 4. Specifications of common quadrotor’s frame material
It’s observed that high performance airframe is usally made of composite material
such as carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) or fiberglass, while airframe with low-
performance requirement, such as for use in toys, usually made from acrylic plastic or
polycarbonate as they’re inexpensive, light and easy to machine [12]. Due to the degisn
requirement necessitates high rigidity, only composite material is considered in details:
- CFRP:
+ Advantages: has very high stiffness to weight ratio. It’s readily available as plate,
which can be machined at affordable cost.
+ Disadvantages: blocks radiowave, which necessitate placement of the receiver at
location unobstructed by the frame or the use of antenna that protrudes outside the frame.

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It’s also electrically conductive, which requires electrical isolation of electronics
components to the frame. The material is also expensive.
- Fiberglass:
+ Advantages: unlike CFRP, fiberglass isn’t conductive and is transparent to
radiowave. It also has high stiffness to weight ratio.
+ Disadvantage: not readily available in basic shape, which make the processing step
much more complex. It’s also costly.
Conclusion: choose CFRP due to very high stiffness and readily available basic shape for
machining.
d) Motor:

Picture 10. Example of a unibell BLDC motor

The motors used on the quadcopter must satisfied the following properties: it must be
light and compact, able to rotates at fast speed, can accelerate and decelerate with small
time delay. Two popular motors that can satisfy these constraints are DC motor and
brushless DC motors (BLDC) [13].

Two basic characteristcs that define a motor is its speed constant and its size:

- Speed constant quantify the relationship between the voltage supplied to the motor’s
armature and the rotational speed of the motor, its unit is kV. For example, if a motor has
a speed constant of 2800kV, it will spin at 14000rpm if supplied with a 5V source.

- Motor sizing determines the maximum power output that a motor provides. It is a 4
digits number denotes as the motor’s stator diamter followed by its shaft length, for
example, if a motor size is 2404, its stator diameter is 24mm and its shaft length is 4mm.

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Large motor usually has higher torque and lower rotational speed, and the opposite for
small motor.

For small quadrotor, small motors with high kV count is preferred as small quadrotor
requires small thrust for movement, and the use of small motors will require small
propeller and small battery, which all save weight.

Conclusion: choose BLDC as propulsion as it’s smaller and lighter than DC motor
with similar performance.
e) Propeller:
Propeller is the components that generate lift during flight [14]. Typically, the size of a
propeller is denoted by a 4 digits number, which specified the propeller’s diameter and its
pitch. For example, a 1045 propeller has a diameter of 10 inches and a pitch of 4.5
inches, where pitch is the distance that the propeller travel after 1 revolution, therefore for
the previous example the 1045 propeller will mose 4.5 inches per revolution.

Chord length of the propeller varies along the propeller radius, and the chord located at
2/3 of the radius is usally chosen as the nominal chord length.

Picture 11. Propeller nominal chord length

Propeller can have 2, 3, 4… blades. Experiment show that 2 blades is the most
efficient propeller configuration, however propeller with more blades can generate more
thrust, and propellers with more blades can generate the same thrust as larger two-blade
propeller, while being more responsive. Higher blades count also provide better stability
when meet with turbulence wind.

19
 Plastic and carbon fiber are the most popular material for manufacturing of propeller,
however as carbon fiber propeller are much more expensive than plastic, only application
with large drones and heavy payload requires the stiffness provided by them. Majority of
mini quadrotors use plastic propellers as it still has adequate stiffness, while being elastic
means it has less probability of being broken due to impact.

Picture 12. Common quadcopter propeller configuration

Conclusion: use three-blade propeller made of plastic as it provides balance between
efficiency and thrust stability.

2.2 Electronics:
a) Sensors:

Picture 13. DJI integrated navigation sensor (9-axis INS + GPS with antenna)

20
 Various sensors are used to control quadcopter altitude, attitude, position or aid the
quadcopter in landing:

- Inertia Measurement Unit (IMU): consists of an accelerometer and a gyroscope. It

returns the quadcopter angular rate and acceleration on 3 axes. IMU is usally coupled
with a magnetometer, which returns magnetic strenght measured on 3 axes, to determine
the quadcopter’s attitude relative to the world frame.

- GPS module: returns the quadcopter coordinate, which can be used to determine its
position and headings.

- Barometer: returns atmospheric pressure, which can be used to determine its altitude
relative to ground.

- Optical flow camera: coupled with rangefinder (either laser or sound) to determined
the quadcopter translational speed relative to ground.

- Ultrasonic sensor: detect nearby obstacles, can be used to avoid objects during flight
or landing.

Conclusion: due to weight constraints and design goal only requires the control of the
quadrotor’s attitude, choose IMU as sensor.
b) Battery:

Picture 14. A 4-cells LiPo battery pack with XT-30 and balance charging connector

21
 Basic characteristics that define a battery package are number of cells, discharge rate,
maximum capacity and physical properties [15]:
- Number of cells: a battery pack is composed of multiple battery cells in serial or parallel
wiring, each cell has the same properties and a nominal voltage of 3.7V, a battery pack
with 3 cells in serial wiring is denoted 3S. If the drone is performing heavy lifting or fast
maneuvre, more current draw is expected from the battery while the provided voltage
stays the same, therefore battery is wired parallel to give more maximum continuous
current but still similar voltage (e.g 3S1P battery pack means 3 cells wired in series with
1 additional cell wired in parallel).
- Capacity: maximum charge that a battery pack can hold, determines flight time depends
on power consumption.
- Discharge rate: maximum instantaneous current that the battery pack can supply to the
system. For examples, an 800mAh battery pack with 75C discharge rate can provide at
most 75 ∗ 0.8 = 60(A) to the system.
- Physical properties such as weight and dimensions, which can be chosen based on the
size of the quadcopter.
Batteries used in quadcopter systems need to satisfy the following requirements:
rechargable, can provide high discharge rate, can store high capacity, light-weight. Some
of the commonly used batteries type are NiMH, LiPo, Li-ion batteries. It can be of
several forms: a prepacked multi-cells battery, or multiple cylinder battery in serial
connection such as 18650 batteries.
- NiMH: cheap power source, but has low energy density and low discharge rate.
- Li-ion: highest energy density available, has high recharge cycles. However specialized
recharging station is required for safety, and it has lower discharge rate than LiPo battery.
Suitable for long-endurance drone with slow movement.
- LiPo: has highest discharge rate, high energy density and readily available multiple-
cells battery pack. Requires specialized charger and is expensive. Suitable for “athletic”
drone with fast movement and short flight time
Conclusion: choose multiple-cells battery pack Li-Ion battery as power source for long
flight time.
c) Communication:

Two common commucation medium used by drone for transmission is radio frequency
(RF) and Wifi due to their abundance and well-defined characteristics:

22
 - Radio:

Picture 15. RF is available in small module (FrSky XM RX module pictured)

At least two modules are required to establish communication between the quadcopter
and ground control: a transmitter (TX) and a receiver (RX) [16]. Before communication
can be established, both TX and RX modules must be connected together through a
process called “binding”, when the RX module received and stored TX specific
transmitting data to recognize its signal in future communication. Communication link
between the two modules transmits data that is used to control the quadcopter such as
motor throttle, tilt angle. Each data value is transmitted through a single channel, at least
4 channels are required to control the quadcopter, but transmitter with more channels,
such as 12, 24… are available for other functions. Some communication systems permit
bidiretional transmission, where RX module can send telemetry of the quadcopter back
TX module for recording.

The TX and RX modules must use the same operation frequency, some of the typical
communication frequency includes: 900Mhz, 1,2Ghz, 2,4Ghz, 3,3Ghz and 5,8Ghz.
Lower frequency signal has longer range, while higher frequency signal has lower
latency, communication range can be as far as 2.5km using small receiver without
antenna. If multiple TXs/RXs are operating within the vicinity of each other, care must be
taken to select frequency that is different for each communication pair to avoid signal
interference. However newer RF protocols permit the use of shared frequency in close
23
proximity as each binded TX/RX pair is further differentiated by a binding passcode
that’s only shared between them.

Data is shared between RX module and flight controller either through digital method
(SPI, UART, I2C) or analog method (PWM, PPM).

- Advantages: available at multiple frequency, very long-range transmission can be

achieved (30km range with 900MHz frequency has been recorded). Small form factor
and low power consumption RX module available.

- Disadvantages: in most countries only 2,4GHz frequency range is available for

unlicensed use, which has reduced range.

- Wifi:

Picture 16. Omnidirectional antenna with U.FL connector for long range transmission
Wifi is a wireless protocol that allows high speed, 2-way connection between devices,
available in either 2,4Ghz or 5Ghz. Many commercial quadrotors utilize Wifi to transmit
video feed in real time back to user, thanks to their very high transmission speed
(54Mbps for 802.11g protocol) [17]. However, they’re unsuitable for long range
application, as their range is very limited (as far as 50m for at 5Ghz frequency) and can
be blocked by environment, such as when operated in forest with dense foliage. Antenna
with high transmission power (up to 1W TX and RX module is available commercially)
can be used to extend the transmission range, with the drawback of high-power
consumption, amplified noise and interference with other communication.
24
 Conclusion: choose RF for long-range communication with quadrotor.

2.3 Control system:

a) Control architecture:
Depends on the level of autonomy required of the quadrotor, there’s two distinct
controllers used for controlling high-level and low-level tasks of the system [18]:

- Flight computer: assume high-level control task such as route planning, task
scheduling, communication with operator, fault diagnostic… It forms the outer loop
control which sends command such as desired translational speed, angular rate to flight
controller.

- Flight controller: assume low-level control task such as stabilization, communicating

with motor driver. It forms the inner control loop and the output is the actual speed of
individual motors.

These controllers can be either single microcontroller/computer or a system of

controllers connected through a network, forming either centralized or distributed control
system:

- Centralized control: few components required, which simpify the control process.
However fast controller is required to handle all control tasks, and is harder to test.

- Distributed control: because the control task is shared, less capable controllers can be
used. The distributed nature also allows concurrent development and testing of
components. The drawbacks is complex implementation and costly.

Conclusion: choose centralized control system because design goals require low-level
autonomy and simple system for fast response.
b) Control algorithm:
Many controller types have been applied successfully to the control of the drone’s
attitude, altitude, position and speed: PID, LQR, Sliding mode, Backstepping. Depends
on the required functionallities, quadcopter can perform tasks with increasing autonomy:

25
 + Holding position without user input.

+ Automatic route planning and tracking.

+ Object following using vision or thermal camera.

+ Performing cooperative task (drone swarming).

Conclusion: choose cascaded PID controller with outer loop for tilt angle control and
inner loop for angular rate control of the quadrotor.

2.4 Diagram of the chosen system options:

a) Mechanical option:

Picture 17. Cross configuration diagram

b) Electrical option:

26
 Picture 18. Control architecture diagram

c) Control option:

Picture 19. System control loop diagram

27
 CHAPTER 3: MECHANICAL DESIGN

3.1 Calculate frame size

Due to the weight constraint, there is an upper limit to the physical size of the drone, as
bigger drone requires bigger motors and propellers to fly at maximum speed, which in turns
requires larger batteries to have enough capacity to sustain long flight [19]. The size of a
quadrotor is closely related to its propeller size, the number of propeller and the propeller
tilt angle. If we assume that the propeller isn’t tilted, then the relationship of between the
airframe radius and the maximum radius of the propeller is:
rmax
R = (3.1)
180°
sin ( )
n
numerical simulation results show that there’s an upper limit to the maximum
propeller size as too large propeller will creates interference between the flow fields,
results in the thrust generate fluctuates and overall less thrust. If the propeller size is less
than or equal rmax , each propeller will generate independent vortex without interference.
The relationship between propeller size and its maximum size is:
rmax = 1,05r ÷ 1,4r (3.2)
where:
R: distance from the quadcopter’s center of gravity to a motor.
r: propeller radius.
n: number of motors, for quadrotor n = 4.
- For the chosen 4” frame size, the airframe radius is R = 90mm, and the calculated
maximum propeller size is:
rmax = R sin(45°) ≈ 63,64mm (3.3)
The propeller size is therfore within the range of:
rmax rmax
r= − ≈ 45 ÷ 60mm (3.4)
1,05 1,4
- For the chosen 5” frame size, the airframe radius is R = 110mm, and the calculated
maximum propeller size is:

28
 rmax = R sin(45°) ≈ 77,78mm (3.5)
The propeller size is therfore within the range of:
rmax rmax
r= − ≈ 56 ÷ 74mm (3.6)
1,05 1,4
Changing the size of a multicopter will change its weight and moment of inertia, which
determine the maximum angular and translational acceleration. The relationship between
various physical properties and the frame size is as follow:
T ~ ω2 R4 , M ~ ω2 R5
{
m ~ R3 , J ~ R5
T ω2 R4
a= ~ 3
= ω2 R
m R (3.7)
→
M ω2 R5
α= ~ = ω2
{ J R5
According to Mahony et al, if the flow is compressible and the blade tip speed is
constant, we have:
1
ω~
R
Based on this assumption, we have:
1
a~
{ R (3.8)
1
α~ 2
R
where:

T: total thrust generated by the motors (N).

M: total moment around a principal axis (roll, pitch, yaw) generated by a motor (Nm).

m: quadcopter take-off weight (kg).

J: quadcopter moment of inertia around a principal axis (kgm^2).

a: linear acceleration of the quadrotor along principal axis (m/s^2).

α: angular acceleration of the quadrotor around principal axis (rad/s^2).

29
 ω: angular speed of the propeller (rad/s).

The ~ sign denotes that the value on the left-hand side is proportional to the value on
the right-hand side.

The analysis above proves that the body size is direcly relates with the quadrotor’s
angular and translational acceleration. If the quaadrotor is small, it will have high ability
to change its direction and attitude, which results in more flexible movement. In addition,
because the body size correlates with propeller size, the increase in propeller size will
increase its moment of inertia, results in slower response. Larger propeller also needs
high rigidity to avoid significant blade-flapping. Therefore, the size of the quadcopter and
propeller will be chosen as follow:

- Quadcopter: wheelbase radius R = 90mm (4” frame).

- Propeller: radius r = 45mm (4” propeller).

3.2 Calculating propulsion system

A quadrotor’s propulsion system consists of these basic components: BLDC motor,

propeller, motor driver (also called ESC or electronics speed controller) and battery.
Because these components property are highly complementary, any design will encompass
calculation for all components [20]. The design process will be divided into 4 parts:
propeller design, motor design, ESC design and battery design. The end result is the
specification of these components based on the input design requirements: flight endurane
(Tmax ), maximum flight speed (vmax ), top service ceiling (hmax ).

a) Propeller design:

As mentioned, quadrotor usually uses fixed-pitch propeller, its performance is evaluated

based on generated thrust T and torque M, they are calculated by:
N 2 4
T = CT ρ ( ) Dp (3.9)
60

30
 N 2 5
M = CM ρ ( ) Dp (3.10)
60

where:

N: propeller speed (rpm).

Dp : diameter of the propeller (meter).

CT , CM : thrust and torque coefficient (dimensionless).

ρ: air density (kg/m^3), it depends on the local altitude h (m) and temperature t (⁰C). It’s
calculated as follow:
273P
ρ = ρ (3.11)
101325(273 + t) 0
where ρ0 = 1,293 (kg/m^3) is the standard air density. P (Pa) is the atmospheric
pressure and is calculated as follow:
5,2561
h
P = 101325 (1 − 0,0065 ) (3.12)
273 + t
We have the maximum service ceiling hmax = 10m, assuming the operating
temperature t = 30⁰C, we have:
10 5,2561
P = 101325 (1 − 0,0065 ) ≈ 101210,8Pa (3.13)
273+30
273∗101210,8
ρ = ∗ 1,293 ≈ 1,164kg/m3 (3.14)
101325(273+30)

The formula to calculate the constant CT , CM is as follow:

HP
ε tan−1 − α0
πDP
CT = 0,25π3 λζ2 BP K 0 (3.15)
πA + K 0
1 2
CM = π CD λζ2 BP 2 (3.16)
8A
with:

31
 2
HP −1
πAK 0 2 ε tan πDP − α0
CD = CFD + ( ) (3.17)
e πA + K 0

where:

Bp : blade number of propeller (dimensionless).

Hp : propeller’s pitch (inch).

A, e, λ, ζ, ε, CFD , α0 , K 0 are the propeller’s aerodynamical constant obtains through

experimentation. According to research literature, the range of these value is:

A = 5 ÷ 8, ε = 0,85 ÷ 0,95, λ = 0,7 ÷ 0,9

ζ = 0,4 ÷ 0,7, e = 0,7 ÷ 0,9, CFD = 0,015

π
α0 = (− ) ÷ 0, K 0 = 6,11
36

According to experimental values provided by the website of APC propeller, the

parameters for 4” propeller should be chosen as: A = 5, ε = 0,85, λ = 0,75, ζ = 0,5, e =
0,83, CFD = 0,015, α0 = 0, K 0 = 6,11. From there, we can calculate the constant:
HP
0,85 tan−1 ( ) HP
0,9π
CT = 0,25π3 ∗ 0,75 ∗ 0,52 ∗ BP ∗ 6,11 ∗ ≈ 0,346BP tan−1 ( ) (3.18)
5π + 6,11 0,9π
2
HP
5π ∗ 6,11 2 0,85 tan−1 ( ) HP 2
0,9π −1
CD = 0,015 + ( ) = 0,015 + 1,072 (tan ( ))
0,83 5π + 6,11 0,9π

2
0,75 ∗ 0,52 π2 2 HP
→ CM = −1
CD BP = 0,046 (0,015 + 1,072 (tan ( ) ) ) BP 2 (3.19)
8∗5 0,9π
b) Motor design:
A brushless DC motor can be modeled by its equivalent circuit, with a resistor R M (Ω)
represents the motor’s armature resistance, an inductor represents the motor’s coil
inductance. A load represents the back-electromotive force. I0 (A) and U0 (V) is the no-
load current and voltage, which is the minimum current and voltage required for the motor

32
to overcome friction and starts rotating. In this representation, the inductance is considered
to be transient effect caused by switching elements and is ignored to simplify the design
process.
The equivalent circuit is as follow:

Picture 20. BLDC motor equivalent circuit

The motor input voltage UM and current IM can be obtained from the propeller speed N,
the generated propeller torque M, the motor’s speed constant K V and the mentioned
parameters by the formula:
MK V U0 U 0 − I0 R M
UM = ( + I0 ) R M + N (3.20)
9,55 ∗ (U0 − I0 R M ) K V U0
MK V U0
IM = + I0 (3.21)
9,55 ∗ (U0 − I0 R M )
c) Motor driver design:

The ESC converts DC voltage supplied by the battery to 3-phase voltage, and control
the switching components following a sequence (either trapezoidal switching or more
efficient algorithm such as field-oriented control) with precise timing to achieve
commutation that drive the BLDC.

The circuit of the ESC is as followed:

33
 Picture 21. ESC input-output voltage and current

In which UE0 is the armature voltage output by the ESC, calculated as follow:

U E = U M + IM R E (3.22)

where R E is the switching resistance of the MOSFET chips of the ESC. The throttle
command σ given by the flight controller to the ESC is calculated as follow:

UM
σ= =0÷1 (3.23)
UE

where UE is the voltage supplied by the battery to the ESC. The ESC output current is
calculated by:

IE = σIM (3.24)

which is limited by the maximum current that the ESC can provide:

IE ≤ IE,max (3.25)

d) Battery design:

The choosing of battery based on the required flight endurance Tmax based on the current
draw from the battery IB . The battery discharge process is simplified based on the
assumption that the battery voltage doesn’t change, and the discharge rate is constant. The
voltage of the battery UB therefore is:

34
 U B = U E + IB R B (3.26)

where R B is the internal resistance of the battery. Because each motor is powered by an
ESC, a quadrotor needs 4 ESC to operate, the total power drawed by the system from the
battery therefore is:

IB = 4IE + Iothers (3.27)

where Iothers is the current consumed by other electronics components such as flight
controller, sensors… Thus, the battery capacity CB (mAh) that’s required for flight
endurance is:

CB − Cmin 60
Tmax = ∗ (3.28)
IB 1000

where Cmin is the minimum battery charge required for safety. Cmin = 0,15 ÷ 0,2CB is
usually chosen. The current drawed also must not exceed the maximum discharge rate K B
of the battery:
CB KB
IB ≤ (3.29)
1000

e) Selecting components:

In hover mode, the sum of thrust of all 4 motors is equal to the weight of the quadrotor.
Thus, the thrust provided by a single motor is:

mg 0,25 ∗ 9,81
F= = ≈ 0,625N (3.30)
4 4
With the design parameters modelled, we will evaluate chosen components to check
whether they can satisfy the design requirements. The list of components and its basic
parameters are listed as followed [21, 22, 23, 24]:

35
 Components Design parameters
Propeller Gemfan D90 - 3 Dp = 3,5in ; Hp = 3in ; Bp = 3
Motor Xing2 1404 K V = 3800RPM/V ; IM , max = 10A ; R M = 0,22Ω ; I0 = 0,2A ; U0 = 6V
ESC Mamba F55 128k IE,max = 55A, R E = 0Ω
Battery Panasonic CB = 6600mAh ; R B = 0,038Ω ; UB = 7,4V ; K B = 3C ; Iothers = 0,11A
NCR18650GA 2S 3300mAh
Table 5. Parameters of chosen quadrotor’s components

The calculated propeller’s constant is:

3
CT = 0,346 ∗ 3 ∗ tan−1 ( ) ≈ 0,846 (3.31)
0,9π
2
2 −1
3
CM = 0,046 ∗ 3 (0,015 + 1,072 (tan ( ) ) ) ≈ 0,303 (3.32)
0,9π

The motor’s speed required can be obtained from () as:

𝑇 0,625
N = 60√ 4 = 60√ ≈ 5903RPM (3.33)
Dp CT ρ 0,846 ∗ 1,164 ∗ 0,094

The propeller torque generated at that speed is:

N 2 5
M = CM ρ ( ) Dp ≈ 0,02Nm (3.34)
60

The input voltage and current for the motor to achive that speed is:
0,02 ∗ 3800 ∗ 6,3 6,3 − 0,2 ∗ 0,22
UM = ( + 0,2) 0,22 + ∗ 5903 ≈ 3,5V (3.35)
9,55 ∗ (6,3 − 0,2 ∗ 0,22) 3800 ∗ 6,3
0,02 ∗ 3800 ∗ 6,3
IM = + 0,2 ≈ 8,21A (3.36)
9,55 ∗ (6,3 − 0,2 ∗ 0,22)
Because the internal resistance of the ESC is negligible, we have: UM = UE = 3,5V

The throttle command sent to the ESC is:

UM 3,5
σ= = ≈ 0,47 (3.37)
UB 7,4

36
 And the current drawed from the battery by the ESC is:

IE = σIM = 0,47 ∗ 8,21 ≈ 3,88A ≪ IE,max = 55A (3.38)

The total current drawed from the battery is:

CB K B
IB = 4IE + Iothers = 4 ∗ 3,88 + 0,11 ≈ 15,64A < = 20A (3.39)
1000

Let Cmin = 0,2CB , the maximum hovering time is:

CB − Cmin 60
∗ = 20,26 mins > Tmax = 10 mins (3.40)
IB 1000

Therefore, the selected components satisfy all design requirements.

3.3 Calculating frame arm dimensions

Picture 22. CFRP orthotropic property

The design of the quadrotor’s arm must be rigid to external forces such as wind and
thrust generated from the motor. It must also ensure that the deflection of the arm’s free

37
end is within acceptable margin, so that the direction of the thrust from the motor is always
perpendicular to the quadrotor’s body.

The quadrotor’s frame is chosen to be made out of carbon fiber reinforced plastic
(CFRP), which is a composite material with directional strength, which means unlike
isotropic material such as metal which has the same stiffness in all direction, CFRP
properties varied depends on the applied forces direction. The material is strongest when
forces is applied parallel to the fiber direction, and weakest when forces is applied
perpendicular to the fiber direction [25]. However, many CFRP composite has layup with
layer of the same thickness and being oriented in balance direction, namely 00 , ±450 , ±90⁰
direction, which gives the final laminates similar strength regardless of applied forces
direction [26]. The laminates properties are similar to isotropic material, hence it’s called
quasi-isotropic, and the design process using CFRP with this properties is the same as using
isotropic material.

Picture 23. CFRP layup with isotropic property

38
 The material of the composite used is Toray T300, which according to the manufacturer
has a tensile modulus E = 140GPa and has a failure strain value of 1,5% [27].

The frame arm can be modelled as a cantilever beam, with motor thrust as force applied
on the free end of the beam. The force diagram is as followed:

Picture 24. Frame arm deflection

bh3
The beam has a rectangular cross-section, with moment of inertia I = . Choose b =
12

7mm, h = 4mm, using Bernoulli’s beam theory, the deflection of the beam can be
calculated:

FL3 0,625 ∗ 0,093

𝛿= = ≈ 0,029mm < 1,5% ∗ 4 = 0,06mm(3.41)
3EI 9 0,007 ∗ 0,0043
3 ∗ 140 ∗ 10 ∗ ( )
12

FL2 0,625 ∗ 0,092

θ= = 3 ≈ 4,843 ∗ 10−4 rad ≈ 0,0280 < 0,10 (3.42)
2EI 0,007 ∗ 0,004
2 ∗ 140 ∗ 109 ∗ ( )
12

→ Frame arm design satisfy rigidity requirements.

39
Picture 25. Quadrotor design 3D model

40
 CHAPTER 4: ELECTRONICS DESIGN

4.1 Selecting electronics components

In the last section the battery has been selected along with the propulsion system. This
section focuses on the selection of the flight controller, sensors and communication
modules critical for the functions of the quadrotor. The chosen components need to be
compact and lightweight, as well as being high-performance to carry out control tasks.

Picture 26. Quadrotor flight controller

The flight controller is an integrated PCB board, using STM32F405RGT6

microcontroller with clock speed of 168Mhz, in compact LFQP64 package. The board also
has integrated MPU6000 IMU sensors, which has a update rate of 8kHz for the gyroscope
and 1kHz for the accelerometer. The microcontroller communicates with the sensor
through SPI protocol, and has 6-pin JST-XH connector to connect with the motor driver
and 4 connection pads to supply power and communicate with the RF RX module through
UART protocol. It has a USB connector used for flashing firmware and communicating
with computer. It has a compact size of 30,5mmx30,5mm and M3 hole for locating screws.

41
 Picture 27. RF RX module (Happymodel EP2)

The RX module is a compact Happymodel EP2 [28] module with 10mmx10mm

dimension and a weight less than 1g. It has a ceramic antenna which provides an extended
receiving range of over 10km in optimal condition, of frenquency band 2,4GHz. It
communicates with flight controller through UART protocol and has the operating voltage
of 5V.

42
 CHAPTER 5: CONTROL DESIGN

5.1 Attitude representation:

In many literatures, quadrotor attitude is represented by quaternion instead of

Euler’s angle or rotation matrix, as it’s more compact (only stored 4 values instead of 9 in
the case of rotation matrix) and doesn’t suffer from “gimbal lock”, a phenomenon where
the quadrotor attitude become mathematically untrivial when one of the quadrotor’s
principal axes coincide with another after rotation [29]. However, because quaternion is
represented in 4D space, using quaternion as attitude representation isn’t intuitive for
human, therefore the input command given by the operator to the quadrotor would still be
represented by Euler’s angle for simplicity’s sake, and will be transformed to quaternion
for filtering and control task.

The quaternion qWB :

qWB = [qw qx qy q z ]T (5.1)

denotes the orientation of the quadrotor’s body frame B with respect to fixed world
coordinate frame W. The element qw is the real part of the quaternion, while the vector
[q x qy qz ] is the imaginary part. The quaternion can therefore be written as [s v]T .
The adjoint, norm and inverse of quaternion q can be calculated as:

q̅ = [qw −qx −qy −qz ]T (5.2)

‖q‖ = √qw 2 + qx 2 + qy 2 + qz 2 (5.3)

q̅
q−1 = (5.4)
‖q‖

Multiplication of two quaternion q and p is as follow:

q ⊗ p = Q(q) ⋅ p (5.5)

43
 qw −qx −qy −qz
qx qw −qz qy
where: Q(q) = [ q qz qw −qx ]
y
qz −qy qx qw

To transform from Euler’s angle (roll angle ϕ, pitch angle θ, yaw angle ψ) to
quaternion, we use the following formula:

ϕ θ ψ ϕ θ ψ
cos cos cos + sin sin sin
2 2 2 2 2 2
qw ϕ θ ψ ϕ θ ψ
qx sin cos cos − cos sin sin
qWB = [q ] = 2 2 2 2 2 2 (5.6)
y ϕ θ ψ ϕ θ ψ
qz cos sin cos + sin cos sin
2 2 2 2 2 2
ϕ θ ψ ϕ θ ψ
[ cos cos sin − sin sin cos
2 2 2 2 2 2]
Integration of quaternion: to measure the attitude of the quadrotor, the
measurements return from the gyroscope can be used by integrating the angular rate
overtime as the current attitude of the quadrotor. Let qt be the current estimated
quaternion, qt−1 is the estimated quaternion of the previous step, q(ω) =
[0 ωx ωy ωz ] is the quaternion representation of the measured angular rate return
from the gyroscope, and q̇ is the quaternion derivative, representing the change of
quadrotor atttitude between current step and previous step. The formula to calculate the
quaternion derivative [30] is as follow:

1
q̇ = q(ω)qt−1 (5.7)
2
And the integration is simply the sum of the previous step attitude with the amount
change between interval ∆t:

qt = qt−1 + q̇ ∆t (5.8)

5.2 Attitude estimation:

a) Sensor fusion algorithm overview:

44
 The measured feedback from the IMU always contains error due to noise and
measurement bias resulted from manufacturng imperfection. Therefore, estimation
algorithm must be used to estimate and remove the error from the raw measurements,
integrate the result to obtain new attitude estimate and update the system state variables.
These algorithms are called sensor fusion, which combines measurements from multiple
sensors such as gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer… to get more precise estimated
result. The standard sensor fusion algorithm in aerospace guidance and navigation is the
Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), being popular due to its ability to fuse many sensors
feedback source with different update rate, can be used for different attitude
representation such as Euler's angle, rotation matrix and quaternon and can provide
robust result with correct model provided. However, without precise error model of the
sensors, which can be time-consuming to obtain, EKF will be slowed to converge to the
correct solution, or even not converge at all. EKF can also be computing-intensive due to
the need of calculating matrix inverse, which makes it unsuitable for high frequency
control loop, which is needed for fast response to quadrotor changing dynamics.

Another approach is the works of Mahony and Madgwick, which is called Mahony
filter and Madgwick filter respectively. These algorithms use gradient descent method to
converge to the attitude value with the least error, obtained by integrating a “corrected”
angular rate value using feedback accelerometer and magnetometer as reference. These
algorithms have the advantage of fast computing speed, as no matrix inversion is
required, and has tunable converging coefficient K, which is the speed at which the
attitude value converge to the correct value. This is useful as the coefficient can be set to
high value at system start to quickly converge to the true attitude, and then set to the
lower operational value to avoid overshooting.

Because of the fast dynamics nature of small quadrotor, fast computing speed for high
update rate control loop is advantageous. Therefore, the Madgwck filter will be used as
attitude estimaton algorithm for the quadrotor. The estimating process of the filter is
detailed as follow [31]:

45
 - Step 1: obtain the current calibrated angular rate ω (rad/s), linear acceleration a (g)
and Earth’s magnetic field strength (gauss).

- Step 2: calculate the attitude error et of the previous estimate using the current
accelerometer and magnetometer reference:

2 (qx qz − qw qy ) 2 (qx qy + qw qz )
2 2 2 2
v(qt−1 ) = 2 (qw qx + qy qz ) , w(qt−1 ) = qw − qx − qz + qy

[ 2 (qy qz − qw qx ) ]
2 2 2 2
[qw − qx − qy + qz ]

at
eat = × v(qt−1 ) (5.9)
‖a t ‖
a t × mt
eat = × w(qt−1 ) (5.10)
‖ a t × mt ‖
- Step 3: caluclate “corrected” gyro measurement ω
̂t using the attitude error:
̂t = ωt + K(eat + emt )
ω (5.11)
- Step 4: calculate quaternion derivative from “corrected” gyro measurement:
1
qṫ = q ⨂q(ω
̂t ) (5.12)
2 t−1
- Step 5: integrate quaternion for current attitude estimate:

qt = qt−1 + qṫ ∆t (5.13)

- Step 6: normalize quaternion:

qt
qt = (5.14)
‖q t ‖
5.3 Quadrotor dynamics modelling:

The transfer function of the quadrotor’s attitude and body rate is derived in this section
to facilitate effective stabilizing controller design for the quadrotor [32].

The dynamics model of the quadcopter assumes these properties are true:

- The quadrotor frame is assumed to be rigid and symmetrical.

46
 - The propellers are assumed to be rigid

- Wind and ground-effect impact on the system is negligible.

- The center of gravity of the quadrotor is assume to located in the middle of the entire
system, as the frame is symmetrical and all components is mounted close to the center of
the quadcopter’s frame.

The drone body frame convention is described as follow:

Picture 28. Quadrotor’s frame convention

where motor 1 and 3 rotate counter clockwise, and motor 2 and 4 rotate clockwise.
The tilt angles around each axis are ϕ, θ, ψ; the body rates are ωx , ωy , ωz .

The quadrotor can be attitude and position can be changed by altering the thrust
produced by each motor, thus applying a three-axis torque and a collective thrust on the
quadrotor. Let the thrust produced by each motor be fi . The torque applied on each motor
axis is:
√2
τx l(f + f2 − f3 − f4 )
2 1
τ = [τy ] = √2 (5.15)
τz l(−f1 + f2 − f3 + f4 )
2
[ κ(f1 − f2 − f3 + f4 ) ]

47
 and the total thrust produced by all four motors is equal the quadrotor’s weight. Even
when the quadrotor is tilted, the thrust in the vertical direction must still be equal to the
quadrotor’s weight to maintain altitude, thus:
mg
= f1 + f2 + f3 + f4 (5.16)
cos θ cos ϕ
where l is the length of the motor arms, g is the gravitational acceleration of the
quadrotor and κi is the reaction torque coefficient with respect to thrust of each motor.

The dynamics of the motor can be modeled as a first order system:

1
ḟ = (f − f ) (5.17)
α des
where α is the motor ′ s thrust time constant determined from applying a step input
and measure the response of the motor, and fdes is the commanded thrust. To account for
the motor driver’s nonlinearity, the time constant is differentiated for acceleration and
deceleration case:
1
(fdes − f), when fdes > f
α up
ḟ = (5.18)
1
(fdes − f), when fdes < f
{αdown
the time constant of the motor’s reaction torque is assumed to be the same as the
motor’s thrust, therefore:
1
τ̇ = (τ − τ ) (5.19)
α des
Because the thrust generated by the motors varied according to its speed, which
changed according to the command input, the thrust fi and torque τi of each motor is
related to the command input u as follow:
f(u) = au2 + bu + c (5.20)
τ(u) = κf(u) (5.21)
where the coefficients a, b, c is determined as follow:

48
 - Each motor is mounted on a load cell and running with propeller to measure the
generated thrust and moment. The measured value is plotted against the digital command
input from the flight controller in the range of [0, 1]. The coefficient is extracted from the
best fitted quadratic function to the data samples.

- From the derived quadratic function, calculate the value of f(u) and τ(u) for the
τ
whole command input range. The coefficient κ is then calculated as follow: κ = i , with
fi

the coefficient assumed to be the same for all 4 motors for simplicity.

Through experiment, the fitted quadratic curve that describes the function between
input command and generated thrust is as follow:

Picture 29. Fitted curve of the quadratic function for input command to thrust

And the quadratic funciton is:

f(u) = 0,0001617u2 − 0,215u + 50,12 (5.22)

where 1000 ≤ u ≤ 2000.

The quadrotor’s attitude and its derivative can be calculated from the motor’s thrust as
follow:

49
 Ixx 0 0 ω̇x
τ = Iω̇ = [ 0 Iyy 0 ] [ω̇y ]
0 0 Izz ω̇z

√2 Iyy − Izz
l(f1 + f2 − f3 − f4 ) − ωy ωz
2Ixx Ixx
√2 Izz − Ixx
→ ω̇ = I −1 (τ − ω × Iω) = l(−f1 + f2 − f3 + f4 ) − ωx ωz (5.23)
2Iyy Iyy
κ Ixx − Iyy
(f1 − f2 − f3 + f4 ) − ωx ωy
[ Izz Izz ]
And the quadrotor’s Euler angle derivative relation with its angular rate is:
1 sin ϕ tan θ cos ϕ tan θ
ϕ̇ ωx
0 cos ϕ − sin ϕ
θ̇ = [ θ̇ ] = [ ] [ωy ] (5.24)
sin ϕ cos ϕ ωz
ψ̇ 0
cos θ cos θ
ωx 1 0 − sin θ ϕ̇
ω
→ ω = [ y ] = [0 cos ϕ sin ϕ cos θ ] [ θ̇ ] (5.25)
ωz 0 − sin ϕ cos ϕ cos θ ψ̇

5.4 Control loop design:

a) Control design:

The diagram of the quadrotor control system is as follow:

Picture 30. Attitude control loop diagram

50
 - The system is PID controller that control the quadrotor’s motors from the feedback
angular rate and estimated attitude with integral limiting to avoid setpoint overshoot that
saturate the motor response and ensure that the setpoint is met. The outer loop is a
proportional controller, which calculate the angular rate setpoint for the inner loop.

- The input of the system is the stick position of the radio controller, which defined the
pilot’s desired attitude of the quadrotor in Euler’s angle. This desired attitude is then
compared with the estimated attitude obtained from Madgwick’s filter to calculate the
attitude difference. The inner loop controller calculates the attitude loop control output,
which is sent to a mixing algorithm to define PWM value for individual motors.

- The throttle value, which defined the altitude of the quadrotor, is passed through a
low pass filter and then sent to the thrust mixing algorithm to calculate individual motors
output.

- The feedback value of the quadcopter system is the calibrated value of feedback
angular rate from the gyroscope, the acceleration from the accelerometer and the
magnetic strength from the magnetometer on each axis of the quadrotor’s body frame.
These values are passed onto the Madgwick sensor fusion filter to estimate the
quadrotor’s attitude in quaternion, which will be converted back to Euler’s angle to
calculate the error, and the angular rate is also used to calculate error for the controller’s
derivative.

From the quadrotor dynamics, it can be seen that [33]:

√2 Iyy − Izz
l(f1 + f2 − f3 − f4 ) − ωy ωz
2 Ixx
Ixx ω̇x
√2 Izz − Ixx
[Iyy ω̇y ] = l(−f1 + f2 − f3 + f4 ) − ωx ωz (5.26)
Izz ω̇z 2 Iyy
Ixx − Iyy
κ(f1 − f2 − f3 + f4 ) − ωx ωy
[ Izz ]

The change of angular rate ω̇ is defined to be the control input of the system, thus:

51
 √2 Iyy − Izz
l(f1 + f2 − f3 − f4 ) − ωy ωz
2 Ixx
Ixx uϕ
√2 Izz − Ixx
[ Iyy uθ ] = l(−f1 + f2 − f3 + f4 ) − ωx ωz (5.27)
Izz uψ 2 I yy
Ixx − Iyy
κ(f1 − f2 − f3 + f4 ) − ωx ωy
[ Izz ]

where uϕ , uθ , uψ is the control input on the roll, pitch, yaw angle respectively.

PID controllers is used to stabilize the quadrotor, with proportional and integral
components proportional to the error between the commanded attitude and the estimated
attitude and its integral, and the derivative component proportional to the error between
commanded attitude derivative and measured angular rate transformed to attitude
derivative:

̇ − ϕ̇x ) + K P,ϕ (ϕd − ϕ) − K I,ϕ ∫(ϕd − ϕ)dt) = τx

Ixx (K D,ϕ (ϕd,x (5.28)

̇ − θẏ ) + K P,θ (θd − θ) − K I,θ ∫(θd − θ)dt) = τy

Iyy (K D,θ (θd,y (5.29)

̇ − ψ̇z ) + K P,ψ (ψd − ψ) − K I,ψ ∫(ψd − ψ)dt) = τz

Izz (K D,ψ (ψd,z (5.30)

mg
= f1 + f2 + f3 + f4 (5.31)
cos θ cos ϕ
Where K D,ϕ , K P,ϕ , K I,ϕ is the derivative, proportional and integral control
coefficient for roll axis, with pitch and yaw axis have their respective control coefficient
̇ is the commanded angular rate around x-axis, and ϕd is the commanded roll
as well. ϕd,x
angle. ϕ̇x is the measured attitude derivative and can be obtained from the measured
reading ωx from gyroscope using the formula (5.24). The commanded angular rate is
calculated as the difference between commanded angle and quadrotor attitude obtained
via estimation:

52
 ̇ = ϕd − ϕ
ϕd,x (5.32)

̇ = θd − θ
θd,y (5.33)

̇ = ψd − ψ
ψd,z (5.34)

Therefore (5.27), (5.28), (5.29) can be rewritten as:

Ixx ((K D,ϕ + K P,ϕ )(ϕd − ϕ) + K I,ϕ ∫(ϕd − ϕ)dt − K D,ϕ ϕ̇x ) = τx (5.35)

Iyy ((K D,θ K θ + K P,θ )(θd − θ) + K I,θ ∫(θd − θ)dt − K D,θ θẏ ) = τy (5.36)

Izz ((K D,ψ K ψ + K P,ψ )(ψd − ψ) + K I,ψ ∫(ψd − ψ)dt − K D,ψ ψ̇z ) = τz (5.37)

The thrust that is required by each motor can be calculated as follow:

mg Izz uψ √2
f1 = + + (I u − Iyy uθ ) (5.38)
4 cos θ cos ϕ 4κ 4l xx ϕ

mg Izz uψ √2
f2 = − + (I u + Iyy uθ ) (5.39)
4 cos θ cos ϕ 4κ 4l xx ϕ

mg Izz uψ √2
f3 = − − (I u + Iyy uθ ) (5.40)
4 cos θ cos ϕ 4κ 4l xx ϕ

mg Izz uψ √2
f4 = + + (I u − Ixx uϕ ) (5.41)
4 cos θ cos ϕ 4κ 4l yy θ

And from there, the commanded value for each motor is derived from (5.20) as
follow:

−b + √b 2 − 4a(c − fi )
ui = (5.42)
2a

With all 4 motord assumed to have the same thrust to input command curve.
b) Control tuning:

53
 The value of some of the important physical quantities has been obtained (either as
design value, calculation or from design software such as Solidworks) as follow:
Variables Definition Value
m Quadrotor weight 0,25kg
l Quadrotor wheelbase radius 0,09m
k Ratio between generated thrust and torque of a motor 0,0322
I [Ixx , Iyy , Izz ] Quadrotor principal inertia [2,4 ∗ 10−4 ; 3,6 ∗ 10−4 ; 3,2 ∗ 10−4 ]
Table 6. Value of quadrotor’s dynamics physical quantities
Andrew Gibiansky has presented an automatic tuning method [34] based on gradient
descent to obtain the optimal value of coefficient K P , K I , K D that minimize the cost
function J:
tf
1 2
⃗)=
J(θ ∫ e(t, ⃗θ) dt
t f − t o to

where t o , t f are the start and end time of the tuning period, e(t, ⃗θ) is the angle tracking
⃗ (K P , K I , K D ). This vector can be
error based on time t and the control coefficient vector θ
iteratively improved with gradient descent as follow:
⃗k=θ
θ ⃗ k−1 − λ∇J(θ
⃗)

where λ is the learning step and can be varied to converge quickly or slowly with or
⃗ ) is the gradient of the cost function J and is defined as:
without overshooting. ∇J(θ

∂ ∂ ∂
⃗)=(
∇J(θ ⃗ ),
J(θ ⃗ ),
J(θ ⃗ ))
J(θ
∂K P ∂K I ∂K D

and the partial derivative of vector ⃗θ with respect to any coefficient can be
approximated as:
∂ ⃗ +δ∙u
J(θ ⃗ −δ∙u
⃗ k ) − J(θ ⃗ k)
⃗)=
J(θ
∂K 2δ
Where u
⃗ k is the unit vector in the K direction. This method only guarantees the
resulting coefficient will minimize the cost function to the global minima, therefore the

54
tuning is repeated several times to ensure find the best results. Using this method, the
tuned coefficients are:
K P = −19,5427; K I = 0,2082; K D = 24,8739
The tuning is performed using Matlab, with code modified from the original code
provided by the author [35].

55
 CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION

6.1 General assessment:

Picture 30. Quadrotor total weight

Quadrotor flight test video (scan QR code to view)

The capstone project has successfully designed, manufactured a quadrotor that satisfy
all design requirements as presented in Chapter 1. The finished quadrotor has a total weight
of 238g, well within the regulation limits of 250g. The quadrotor frame has a modular

56
design, with each arm can be replaced individually when broken, allowing easy repair and
can be replaced with arms of different configurations if needed.

The project has also presented an attitude control scheme for quadrotor stabilization
using PID controller, as well as Madgwick attitude estimation algorithm that combine both
angular rate and acceleration measurement from IMU to estimate current quadrotor’s pose
without significant drifting.

6.2 Project limitation:

During the project development, several limitations were noted:

- The final takeoff weight of the design leaves little margin for more payload carrying
capability without exceeding weight limits. The frame design should be reviewed to
determine frame part that doesn’t contribute to structural strength to further weight loss.

- The quadrotor can’t determine its position, therefore entirely depends on human
operator to keep it within visual range. More sensors such as GNSS chip, barometer…
can be used to help determine quadrotor’s position for position control.

- The chosen electronics are more suitable quadrotor with rapid movement due to its
design for high power output. Electronics components with less power consumption can
be chosen to save weight, provide longer flight time with similar required performance.

6.3 Future development:

Micro quadrotor on the market belongs to the sub-250g category can carry a camera
with gimbal for aerial photography, while simulatenously equipped with navigational
sensors and obstacle avoidance sensors to perform complex autonomous movement and
maintaining safe distance with the environment. The quadrotor design can be better
optimized for weight saving to integrate more functions while still ensuring structural
strength.

The quadrotor, or multicopter in general, mechanical design steps which include sizing
and components selection is similar for drone of all size. Therefore, drone of larger

57
category without weight constraint can be designed to carry more payload and perform
sophisticated tasks, with design steps still similar to micro-sized drone.

58
 REFERENCES
[1] Unknown author, “Drone Laws in the USA”, drone-laws, March 30, 2023.
https://drone-laws.com/usa-drone-laws-in-usa/

[2] Brendan Schulman, “Why Did DJI Create a 249-Gram Drone?”, Viewpoints, May
10, 2022. https://viewpoints.dji.com/blog/why-did-dji-create-a-249-gram-drone

[3] Kimon P. Valavanis, George J. Vachtsevanos and others, Handbook of Unmanned

Aerial Vehicle (Springer,2015), 44.

[4] Quan Quan, Introduction to Multicopter Design and Control (Springer,2017), 5.

[5] K. Dalamagkidis, K. Valavanis, L. Piegl, On Integrating Unmanned Aircraft

Systems into the National Airspace System: Issues, Challenges, Operational Restrictions,
Certification, and Recommendations, Intelligent Systems, Control and Automation:
Science and Engineering (Springer,2012).

[6] Kimon P. Valavanis, George J. Vachtsevanos and others, Handbook of Unmanned

Aerial Vehicle (Springer,2015), 87-89.

[7] Quan Quan, Introduction to Multicopter Design and Control (Springer,2017), 6-11.

[8] Unknown author, “Mavic Mini Specs”, DJI, 2019, https://www.dji.com/mavic-

mini/specs.

[9] Unknown author, “EVO NANO Series”, Autel Robotics, 2022,

https://www.autelrobotics.com/productdetail/evo-nano-series-drones.html#jsgg.

[10] Oscar Liang, “A Comprehensive Guide to FPV Drone Frame”, April 29,
2023,https://oscarliang.com/fpv-drone-frames/.

[11] Unknown author, “Connect ESCs and Motors”, Ardupilot, 2020,

https://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/connect-escs-and-motors.html.

59
 [12] Quan Quan, Introduction to Multicopter Design and Control (Springer,2017), 35-
36.

[13] Quan Quan, Introduction to Multicopter Design and Control (Springer,2017), 40-
43.

[14] Quan Quan, Introduction to Multicopter Design and Control (Springer,2017), 37-
39.

[15] Oscar Liang, “Choosing The Best Radio Transmitter for Your FPV Drone: A
Beginner’s Guide”, March 6, 2023, https://oscarliang.com/radio-transmitter/ .

[16] Oscar Liang, “Using LiPo Batteries for FPV Drone: A Beginner’s Guide With
Top Product Recommendations”, January 28, 2023, https://oscarliang.com/lipo-battery-
guide/.

[17] Thomas Christof, “DJI Wi-fi protocol Reverse Engineering” [Master thesis,
Johannes Kepler University Linz], Johannes Kepler University Linz Research Database,
https://epub.jku.at/obvulihs/download/pdf/6966648?originalFilename=true.

[18] “The Difference Between a Drone Flight Controller and Flight Computer”,
Nicholas Rhem, published August 1, 2020, Youtube video, 0:25,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlKeFj5teo4.

[19] Quan Quan, Introduction to Multicopter Design and Control (Springer,2017), 61-
64.

[20] Quan Quan, Introduction to Multicopter Design and Control (Springer,2017), 75-
82.

[21] Unknown author, “Gemfan D90-3 (3,5”) Cinewhoop Props”, Gemfan, May 5,
2021, https://www.gemfanhobby.com/show.aspx?id=318&cid=71.

60
 [22] Unknown author, “Xing2 1404 Toothpick Ultralight Build (unibell)”, iFlight,
2021, https://shop.iflight-rc.com/xing2-1404-toothpick-ultralight-build-unibell-pro1482 .

[23] ] Unknown author, “Mamba F55_128K BL32 4IN1 ESC 55A 6S”, Diatone, 2021,
https://www.diatone.us/products/mb-f55_128k-bl32-esc .

[24] ] Unknown author, “Tattu 850mAh 14,8V 75C 4S1P LiPo battery pack with
XT30 plug”, Tattu, December 15, 2016, https://genstattu.com/tattu-850mah-14-8v-75c-
4s1p-lipo-battery-pack-with-xt30-plug.html .

[25] Ever J. Barbero, Introduction to Composite Material Design, (CRC Press,2018),

3.

[26] A.T.Nettles, “Basic Mechanics of Laminated Composite Plates”, NASA

Reference Publication, 1994,
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19950009349/downloads/19950009349.pdf .

[27] Unknown author, “T300 Standard Modulus Carbon Fiber”, Toray, April 13, 2018,
https://www.toraycma.com/wp-content/uploads/T300-Technical-Data-Sheet-1.pdf.pdf .

[28] Unknown author, “Happymodel 2,4g ExpressLRS nano series receiver module
PP/ EP1/ EP2 RX”, Happymodel, April 10, 2021, https://www.getfpv.com/happymodel-
expresslrs-nano-2-4ghz-ep2-rx.html.

[29] Bùi Quang Minh, “Quaternion và phép quay không gian”, Minh-cly, January 30,
2014, https://minhcly.wordpress.com/2014/01/30/quarternion-va-phep-quay-khong-gian-
phan-1/.

[30] JoeTaicoon, “Integrate angular velocity as quaternion rotation”, stackoverflow,

October 25, 2017, https://stackoverflow.com/questions/46908345/integrate-angular-
velocity-as-quaternion-rotation .

61
 [31] Sebastian O. H. Madgwick, “AHRS algorithm and calibration solutions to
facilitate new applications using low-cost MEMS” [PhD thesis, Johannes Kepler
University Linz], Johannes Kepler University Linz Research Database, 2014,
https://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.681552 .

[32] Mathias Faessler and Flavio Fontana, “Theory and math behind RPG Quadrotor
Control”, University of Zurich, March 1, 2018,
https://rpg.ifi.uzh.ch/docs/PhD18_Faessler.pdf .

[33] Teppo Luukkonen, “Modelling and control of quadcopter”, August 22, 2011,
Aalto University, https://sal.aalto.fi/publications/pdf-files/eluu11_public.pdf.

[34] Andrew Gibiansky , “Quadcopter Dynamics and Simulation”, November 23,

2012, Andrew Gibiansky’s blog,
https://andrew.gibiansky.com/downloads/pdf/Quadcopter%20Dynamics,%20Simulation,
%20and%20Control.pdf .

[35] Andrew Gibiansky , Code of paper “Quadcopter Dynamics and Simulation”,

2012, Github, https://github.com/gibiansky/experiments/tree/master/quadcopter/matlab.

62
 103 ± 0,1

127 ± 0,1
42 ± 0,1
42 ± 0,1

30,5 ± 0,1 25 ± 0,1

3

138
1 2 C D

A
C

A B

A-A (5:1) B-B (5:1)

4 6
7
5 8

D (5:1)

17

C-C (5:1)

12 9
Ø270
13
14 10
11

15
16

17 C1 - 11005 Center brace 1 Carbon Fiber Workshop

16 W/M3/-/HFA4- M3 hex nut 4 Stainless Steel Trifast
15 Mamba F55 128k Electronics speed controller 1 QPRC
14 Mamba F405 Mk3 Flight controller 1 QPRC
13 30x30 - 9 Damping rubber 8 Rubber QPRC
12 W/M3/20/SO12CS M3x20mm hex socket head cap screw 4 Carbon Steel Trifast
11 W/M2/10/SO12CS M2x10mm hex socket head cap screw 8 Stainless Steel Trifast
10 C1 - 11004 Side brace 2 Carbon Fiber Workshop
9 C1 - 11003 Lower plate 2 Carbon Fiber Workshop

8 M2x28 - L M2standoff 8 Aluminum QPRC

7 C1 - 11002 Upper plate 1 Carbon Fiber Workshop
6 W/M2/6/SO12CS M2x6mm hex socket head cap screw 8 Stainless Steel Trifast
5 C1 - 11001 Frame arm 4 Carbon Fiber Workshop
4 W/M2/8/SO12CS M2x8mm hex socket head cap screw 24 Stainless Steel Trifast
3 Tattu 850mAh 4S 85C Battery 1 QPRC
2 iFlight Xing2 2800kV Motor 4 QPRC
1 Gemfan D90 Propeller 4 ABS QPRC
No Notation Part Name Qty Material Note

Mechatronics Capstone Project A1 - 11001

Function Name Sign Date Qty Weight Ratio
Design Nguyễn Minh Hùng QUADCOPTER
01 240g 2:1
ASSEMBLY
Instructor Đoàn Thế Thảo No. 1 Sheet(s): 1
DRAWING
Checked Đoàn Thế Thảo
Ho Chi Minh University of Technology
CC19CDT1
 Mechatronics Capstone Project A2 - 11001
Function Name Sign Date
Design Nguyễn Minh Hùng
QUADCOPTER
Instructor Đoàn Thế Thảo SCHEMATICS No. 2 Sheet(s): 1
Checked Đoàn Thế Thảo
Ho Chi Minh University of Technology
CC19CDT1
 Start

Assign initial value for

PID control loop and filter
No No No
Read data Read data Run control
from receiver? from IMU? loop?
Initiate system basic functions
(timer, USB connection, error
handler...)
Yes Yes Yes

Initiate peripheral connection Calculate angle error from

with IMU, radio receiver and command and estimate angle
motor driver
Receive and parse data Receive angular rate and
from radio receiver acceleration data from IMU
Calculate angular rate
Initiate task scheduler command for inner control
loop

Initiate interrupt routine Calculate angular rate error

for individual tasks:
- Read data from sensors
- Read data from receiver
- Run control loop and send
control signal to motor driver
Calculate commanded roll, from command and measured
Calculate calibrated data value
pitch, yaw from parsed data
Calculate motor command
and apply thrust mixing

Yes No
Has system
Receive stop Estimate roll, pitch, yaw Send command to
initialized
command? with Madgwick filter motor driver
correctly?

No Yes

End
Mechatronics Capstone Project A4 - 11001
Function Name Sign Date
Design Nguyễn Minh Hùng
CONTROL
Instructor Đoàn Thế Thảo FLOWCHART No. 1 Sheet(s): 1
Checked Đoàn Thế Thảo
Ho Chi Minh University of Technology
CC19CDT1
 Method Selection

Objective: Design and control a quadcopter: Design specifications:

- Max weight: <250g
- With maximum takeoff weight less than 250 grams - Max range: 2km
- Can stabilize without human intervention
- Receive and follow attitude command signal. - Max arm deflection: 0.1 degree
- Max flight time: 10 minutes

Mechanical Design Electrical Design Control Design

Selection criteria: Control algorithm Control structure

Material Structural layout - Lightweight
- Low power
- Long range Selection criteria: Selection criteria:
Selection criteria: Selection criteria:
- Simple - Simple hardware structure
- Lightweight - Easy to control
- Satisfy control objective - Fast response
- Robust against vibration - Dynamics balance
Method 1: Wireless radio
and external forces
Advantages: Method 1: Centralize
Method 1: X shape - Available in small form factor Conclusion: choose cascaded PID control
Method 1: Carbon fiber with outer loop for angle control and inner loop Advantages:
Advantages: - Allow very long range (several kms) or
Advantages: for angular rate control - Few components, simplify
- Balance on roll and pitch movement high transmission rate (up to Mbps)
- Very high stiffness to weight system design process.
- Dynamically robust, as all 4 motors depends on frequency
- Can be easily manufactured to - Low-cost
contribute to the torque that move the Disadvantages:
different shape quarotor. Throttle
Disadvantages:
- Limited frequency band available for Sitck
Roll rate

Disadvantages:
Position Pitch rate
Yaw rate
Desired
attitude - Required fast controller to handle
Disadvantages: unlicensed use
tasks on time.
- Block radiowave, require careful - More complex thrust mixing - Susceptible to environment interference
+ Angle - Harder to test and debug.
antenna placement - PD
controller
+- Body rate PID
controller
Thrust
mixing
Quadrotor
system

- Electrically conductive, must be x

Body rate (ꞷx , ꞷy , ꞷz)

isolated from electrical components Method 2: Wifi signal Estimated

- Expensive
Method 2: Fiberglass
Advantages:
- High stiffness to weight
- Doesn't block radiowave
Disadvantages:
- Complex manufacturing process,
not readily available in basic shape
- Expensive
Conclusion: choose carbon fiber for high
stiffness to weight ratio
attitude Acceleration (ax, ay, az) Method 2: Distribute
Advantages: Advantages:
y
- Very high transmission rate - Lower processing speed required
- Can connect to many devices equipped - Suitable for concurrent develop
with Wifi receiver and debugging
Disadvantages:
Disadvantages:
- High latency, unsuitable for fast response - Complex communication between
Method 2: Plus shape - Power dropoff quickly from transmitter,
components
Advantages: much shorter range. - Space management required
- Simple thrust mixing - Costly
- Balance on pitch and yaw movement
Conclusion: choose wireless radio for real-time
Disadvantages:
- Not as dynamically robust, as only two communication and control with quadrotor Conclusion: choose centralize control structure
motors generate torque for movement in for ease of software implementation
roll and pitch direction each.
Method 3: H shape
Advantages:
x
- Motor spaced further away, allows more
x internal volume
- Propeller doesn't obstructed camera view,
y
allows better observation y

Disadvantages:
- Require more thrust than X or Plus shape
- Susceptible to excess vibration
Mechatronics Capstone Project A3 - 11001
Conclusion: choose X shape for good Function
Design
Name Sign Date
Nguyễn Minh Hùng 12/04
SELECTION
performance between robustness and balance Instructor Đoàn Thế Thảo METHOD No. 1 Sheet(s): 1
Checked Đoàn Thế Thảo
Ho Chi Minh University of Technology
CC19CDT1