Flying a Drone with Pre-set Flying Controls

Jacob Hillock and Brian Le

Macomb Mathematics Science Technology Center

AP Physics

12 C

Mr. McMillan / Mr. Supal / Mrs. Tallman and Mr. Acre

6 December 2016
 Flying a Drone with Pre-set Flying Controls

The purpose of this experiment was to come up with a way to fly a plane without direct

input to the remote, and to fly it in two different flights: One from start to a point ten meters

away, and land within a meter, and one from start, to that point, and land at the start within one

meter. The experiment benefits the community as it could provide a much easier programmable

drone for recreational use, and for private uses, such as photography and aerial surveillance.

To do this the drone controller was hooked up with servos through a thin metal rod. The

rod was able to move the sticks without breaking them and without activating the other portion

of the stick since each has a dual purpose control. This allowed two different controls on two

different sticks. Forward and backward movement on the right, and left and right turning on the

left. The program was programed and then it was set off on its flight path. After the flight was

finished, there was a toggle of the flight and the drone landed. After the drone landed the radial

distance was measured from the last way point, and the data was that distance. The main goal of

each trial was to get within a meter of the last waypoint three times in a row. After that was done,

the trial set was called accomplished.

The hypothesis of the experiment was that the drone would be able to successfully fly the

two different types of flight. In the end, after 21 flights for flight AB and 32 flights for flight

ABA, the hypothesis was accepted as for both of the different flights were considered to be

multiple successes. Errors were apparent throughout the experiment including the lately notice of

battery life of the drone affecting its flight, and the delay between the drone lifting off and the

execution of the code.

 Table of Contents

Introduction......1

Review of Literature....2

Problem Statement...6

Experimental Design....7

Data and Observations.....9

Data Analysis and Interpretations..14

Conclusion.16

Acknowledgements....18

Appendix A: Program Flowchart...19

Appendix B: AB Flight Program..20

Appendix C: ABA Flight Program....21

Appendix D: Professional Contact.23

Works Cited...24