How to make uav drone?

After creating a group, the first step is to design a frame.

There are some essential parts that you need for your drone:

There are plenty of interesting drone configurations out there. Tri-copters, X frames and H frames are a great place to start! Do your research and get creative with how you want to design your drone. Symmetry is key to ensure flight stability.

Be sure to review your design with any of the board members in the lab. Also, try to make your design as light as you can, taking into account the electrical components will be added later. Use the pdf below for further assistance in frame design.

Frame Design

While a hand drawn sketch is acceptable by the team it is much better to have in hand a CAD drawing as well as its 2-D sketch. The materials and sketch are necessary if you plan on getting assistance using the CNC to build your frame at the Engineering Product Innovation Center (EPIC). You will also need to display all the dimensions of your drawing. There are many options available for creating CAD drawings that are completely free for students.

Solid Works (Windows only)

Also to find the SEK-ID please follow the instructions of collaborate BU.

AutoCAD Fusion 360 (Windows and Mac)

Please also complete the required safety training for EPIC if you wish to enter the facilities. EPIC machines only run during the weeks so be sure to check the times.

Bonus:

Step 2: Build your frame

I could have simply mounted all of the components on a pre-built hobbyist multi-rotor body, but I wanted the final aircraft to be as light and small as possible, very strong, built specifically around my components, and have no parts such as wires or electronic speed controllers (ESCs) dangling in the open.

With the dimensions of all of the components, I used illustration software to sketch out the smallest craft possible.

For construction material, I chose carbon fiber (which I ordered from DragonPlate, in Elbridge, New York). It’s extremely light and strong, although notoriously difficult to cut, and it’s an electrical conductor, so I could not have any exposed wires. Carbon fiber is also excellent at dampening vibrations, important for any flight controller, as vibrations can affect the performance of the accelerometer and gyroscope, not to mention the video. Then came the hard part: I had to engineer each individual piece of the UAV body, but I had no experience in engineering or computer-aided design. Most of the professional CAD programs cost thousands of dollars, far out of my price range. I bought an older version of TurboCAD I found on Amazon for less than $30.

Using exact dimensions of the HoverflyPRO controller, ESCs, motors, and so on, I engineered 29 parts in one month.

Virtually constructing the body of the craft with TurboCAD, I was able to include folding-forward arms for ease of transport, perfectly align all holes for screws (I wanted everything to be connected mechanically, with no glued parts), and gain a sense of how it would balance with all components mounted—vital for multi-rotors.

With the parts engineered, I needed them milled from the pieces of carbon fiber stock. This turned out to be much more difficult than I imagined. Few machine shops work with carbon fiber, as it “eats” cutting bits. I finally found Jason Sauer of Pinnacle Machining in Fort Collins, Colorado, who agreed to help me.

There is no universal file format for CAD; Sauer was quickly able to redraw the TurboCAD files for the simple parts by hand, but for the more complex pieces, I had to figure out how to convert the files.

Stymied, I put an ad on Craigslist, and within 30 minutes heard from Tom Hanson, a machinist-turned-engineer who has his own firm, Hardware Collaborative. He was intrigued by my project (he often donates his time to educational engineering projects), and converted the files in minutes.

With the files completed, Sauer cut all of the parts—to a .0001-inch tolerance—on his three-axis Haas computer numerical-control milling machine.

I then bought an assortment of black anodized hex cap screws from C D Fasteners, and very-hard-to-find black anodized aluminum locking nuts from Fastener Express.

Whether it's because drones are so expensive or you love building them, you're considering building your own drone. So, which is cheaper, building a drone or buying one? Is building your own drone worth it? These are pretty big questions in the drone community.

Generally speaking, it may be cheaper to build a drone yourself than to buy one. However, it depends a lot on the individual components you want to include in your drone. It also has the potential to end up being more expensive than a branded drone. Building a typical DIY drone costs between $350-$500, but a more advanced drone will cost $1000 to build.

To get a better idea of how much it costs to build a drone, we'll break down the cost of building the elements of your own drone.

A drone frame costs about $20 to $250. The exact price depends on weight, design, and materials. Frames range from three-rotor to eight-rotor configurations. The more propellers there are, the more stable the drone will be and the more load it can carry, and the more expensive it will be accordingly. In terms of material, we recommend choosing carbon fiber, which is lightweight and durable, but more expensive. On the other hand. An aluminum frame can help you save more money, but it is easy to be destroyed.

The price of a drone motor is about $10 to $100. The number of motors depends on the number of propellers in the drone, and you need at least more than 3, as each motor powers the work of each propeller. If it's a quadrotor drone, then you need 4 motors, while a six-axis vehicle needs 6 motors, and so on.

Electronic Speed Controllers (ESC) for drones cost about $20 to $40 each. Typically, your drone will need the same number of motors for as many ESCs as it has to ensure stability of the drone.

Each propeller can cost anywhere from $2 to $50, depending on the mass and blade diameter. The number of propellers you need to buy depends on the frame you buy. A tri-rotor drone frame requires three propellers, a quad-rotor plane requires, and so forth.

You should also pay attention to the length of each propeller blade. Short propeller blades allow the drone to change speed suddenly, but longer propeller blades are more stable and more energy efficient.

Each propeller blade should be equally long to ensure the stable flight of the drone. Also, you should avoid large and heavy propellers because they will wear out the motor over time.

A flight controller costs about $100 to $250, depending on the features you need and the type of drone you want to build. The most common flight controller is the quadrotor flight controller, which is designed for drones for racing and aerial photography.

If you need more drone features, you can also configure GPS in the flight controller or install a separate compass and gyroscope to track directions.

The price of a transmitter and receiver for a drone can range from $50 to $500, depending on the quality and range of the transmitter and receiver. The transmitter and receiver of a drone is an important part of the drone that determines how far the drone can go from the radio and at what altitude it can fly.

If you just like to take pictures and shoot videos, there is no need to buy premium models of transmitters and receivers. But if you want to use a drone to monitor a large area, you need to spend more money on the transmitter and receiver.

A typical battery for a drone costs $2 to $20. The exact price depends on the type of drone you're building. An average drone may have battery life from 10 minutes to 30 minutes, but an advanced, high-performing drone needs a larger capacity battery to do its job.

Sensor Type - FPV Cams typically have either a CMOS or CCD image sensor inside. Typically CMOS cameras are cheaper and lighter but lack the ability to react quickly to changes in lighting. This Is quite necessary in FPV flight as we often face the bright sun followed by the darker ground, any lack of visibility could result in a crash!

You can get away with flying a cheap CMOS camera however a CCD will give you better results. Almost all CCD cameras use the Sony Super HAD II sensor which is the gold standard in FPV drones. Examples of this include the RunCam Swift or HS1177 variants.

There are also soe special cameras that make better use from CMOS such as the higher resolution Monster or Eagle cameras and the low light cameras such as the Owl or Night Wolf.

Resolution and Latency - I've grouped these two together as they go hand in hand, the higher resolution you run the more latency you are likely to see! Analogue cameras are rated in TVL which is the number of horizontal lines across the screen.

Due to the added latency I would recommend sticking with a camera the same resolution as your goggles (typically 600tvl). Another consideration is weather you want 4:3 or 16:9 resolution with 4:3 being the most common.

Camera Features - Some cameras have special feature such as the ability to monitor your battery voltage and display it on screen. Other options are low light cameras that can see in nearly total darkness. Mini and even micro cameras are available that may be a better choice for smaller builds whilst some cameras offer a microphone for audio feeds.

Lens - Different sized lenses give a different fields of view (FOV) which allow the pilot to see more around them. The higher the field of view the more fisheye effect you will also have to deal with.