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introduction To Quadcopters

Article · January 2016

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Syrian Arab Republic
Higher Institute for Applied Sciences and Technology
Electronic Systems Departement

Quadcopter

A report for seminar

Student Name:
Ghadeer Shaaban

Supervisors
Dr. Moheddin Kubeitari Dr. Adel ALKAFRI
Mr. Fahmi Alammareen

2016 - 2017
Contents
1 Introduction 2
1.1 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.2 Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.3 Uses of the quadcopter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

2 Components of the quadcopter 6

2.1 Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
2.2 Motors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.3 ESC Electronic Speed Controller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.4 Flight Controller Controlling electronics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
2.5 Radio transmitter and receiver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.6 Propellers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.7 Battery and Charger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

3 Mechanics of quadcopter 11
3.1 Mechanics of Propellers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.2 Movement of the quadcopter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

4 Control the quadcopter 15

4.1 Control theory background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2 variables to be controlled . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

5 Conclusion 16

1
List of Figures
1 Breguet’s quadcopter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2 Oehmichen No.2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
3 Georde de Bothezat’s quadcopter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
4 Convertawings Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
5 A simple quadcopter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
6 A simple quadcopter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
7 Brushless motor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
8 Stator and rotor of brushless motor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
9 Radio transmitter and receiver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
10 Propellers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
11 Wing of aircraft . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
12 Flowing fluid on the wing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
13 Lift and Drag Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
14 Cause of lift Force . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
15 quadcopter frame and earth frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
16 the four forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
17 going forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
18 spining . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

2
 Abstract

The popularity of quadcopters is increasing as the sensors and control

systems are getting more advanced. The quadcopter is naturally un-
stable and has a complex dynamic model and six degrees of freedom.
Even with four motors, it is underactuated, and cannot move without
rotating around one of its axes . In this seminar, we will talk about
history of the quadcopter ,its discription and uses .We will describe all
components of the quadcopter. What we can use and what we should
use to build a stable quadcopter. We will explain how the quadcopter
can fly and how it can do different motions. Finally we will explain why
we need controlling theory to build a quadcopter .
1 Introduction
1.1 History
The very first experimental attempts of taking off with a rotorcraft were mostly
done with multirotors. Around 1907 Jacques and Louis Breguet, French brothers,
their quadrotor did achieve take off, but was very unstable and did not stay air-
borne for a very long time.
In the 1920s, Etienne Oehmichen built the Oehmichen No.2. It set a new world

Figure 1: Breguet’s quadcopter

record, flying distance of 360m and managed to stay in the air for 7 minutes and
40 seconds.
Within the same year, Georde de Bothezat built a quadcopter that was going to

Figure 2: Oehmichen No.2

be used by the U.S Army. Several test flights were successful, but the idea was
discarded because of stability problems.
In 1956, a quadcopter that hosted two engines Convertawings Model A Quadro-

Figure 3: Georde de Bothezat’s quadcopter

2
tor was designed for military use. The original design of the quadcopter was high
quality and practical, but without different models for military use. The military
was not willing to adopt it.

Figure 4: Convertawings Model

Two years later in 1958 , the Curtiss-Wright company designed The Curtiss-
Wright VZ-7 for the US Army. The VZ-7 was controlled by changing the thrust
of each of the four propellers.
In the last 10 years, many small quadcopters have entered the market. This new
breed of quadcopters is cheap, lightweight, and use advanced electronics for flight
control.

3
1.2 Description
What is a quadcopter?
Quadcopters are also called multirotors, due to having 4 or more small rotors
instead of one like the traditional helicopter. Some models have more than 4
rotors and are called multirotors. As a general rule, the more rotors a drone has,
the stronger and more stable it becomes. The quadcopter shown in figure 5 is the

Figure 5: A simple quadcopter

simplest type of multicopter, with each motor/propeller spinning in the opposite

direction from the two motors on either side of it (i.e. motors on opposite corners
of the frame spin in the same direction). A quadcopter can control its roll and
pitch rotation by speeding up two motors on one side and slowing down the other
two. So for example, if the quadcopter wants to roll left, it would speed up motors
on the right side of the frame and slow down the two on the left. Similarly if it
wants to rotate forward it speeds up the back two motors and slows down the
front two.

4
1.3 Uses of the quadcopter
Finding disease :The basic process is really pretty simple, quadcopters are
equipped with bug collection device and then flown around outdoors in various
areas of interest. The quadcopter returns with the collected bugs which are then
used by scientists for analysis. The Analysis is then used to predict outbreaks
for local areas. Local area outbreaks can be analyzed for regional and national
outbreaks.
Product/Food Delivery :One of the innovative uses for quadcopters that
quickly received a lot of media attention was product and food delivery via quad-
copters . Major companies like Amazon, FedEx, DHL, and Dominos are exploring
the use of quadcopters for local delivery of their products.
Geographic Mapping : quadcopters can reach difficult-to-access locations like
eroded coastline or mountaintops and acquire very high-resolution data to create
3D maps. The technology is already available to amateurs and professionals, en-
abling them to collect data and instantly download the imagery. Some are even
using the collected data to contribute to crowd sourced mapping applications .
Agriculture uses : Farmers no longer need to monitor their crops on foot. They
can survey land in minutes instead of hours or days. Agricultural quadcopters can
do amazing things like count plants, examine soil properties like moisture level,
and analyze water usage. The result is more efficient and higher yielding crops.

5
2 Components of the quadcopter
There are different designs of quadcopters. Every design depends on the use of
the quadcopter and its mission. For example, quadcopter used in military domain
differs from personal one ( ex. used in delivery services ). In general there is a
common design which has the main components used for constructing a quadcopter
. Here is what you need for the common design:
1. Frame.
2. Motor x4.
3. Electronic Speed Control (ESC) x4.
4. Flight Control Board.
5. Radio transmitter and receiver.
6. Propeller x4 (2 clockwise and 2 counter-clockwise).
7. Battery and Charger .

Figure 6: A simple quadcopter

2.1 Frame
It is the structure that holds all the components together. It is designed to be
strong and lightweight .To decide the appropriate frame for the copter there are
3 factors to be considered
1.Weight
2.Size
3.Material used
The frame should be rigid and able to minimize the vibrations from the motors .
It consists of 3 parts which are not necessarily of the same material:
1. the center plate where the electronics are mounted .
2. four arms mounted to the center plate.
3. four motor brackets connecting the motors to the end of the arms .
Frames are usually made of :
Carbon Fiber
Aluminium
Wood, such as Plywood or MDF (Medium-density fibreboard)

6
1. carbon fiber: it is the most rigid and vibration absorbent but it is the most
expensive too.
2.Hollow aluminium square rails is the most popular for the QuadCopters arms
due to its relatively light weight, rigidness and affordability. However, aluminium
could suffer from motor vibrations, as its damping effect is not as good as that
of carbon fiber. In cases of severe vibration problem, it could mess up sensor
readings.
3. Wood board is better at absorbing the vibrations than aluminium. Unfortu-
nately, the wood is not a very rigid material and can break easily in quadcopter
crashes.
The motor to motor distance (arm length) usually depends on the diameter of the
propellers. Enough space between the propellers must be provided so that they
do not get caught by each other.

2.2 Motors
Brushless motors used in quadcopter offer more power,speed and longer run times
than conventional brushed motors of the same size. The superior power and ef-
ficiency of the brushless motor make them the ideal choice for high performance
quadcopter.

Figure 7: Brushless motor

We need a brief of brushless motors. They are a bit similar to normal DC

motors in the way that coils and magnets are used to drive the shaft. Though
the brushless motors do not have a brush which takes care of switching the power
direction in the coils. This is why they are called brushless. Instead, the brushless
motors have three coils on the inner (center) of the motor, which is fixed to the
mounting(stator). The outer side( rotor ) contains a number of magnets mounted
to a cylinder that is attached to the rotating shaft. So the coils are fixed.This

7
means wires can go directly to the coils. Therefore there is no need for a brush.

Figure 8: Stator and rotor of brushless motor

2.3 ESC Electronic Speed Controller

ESC depends on the motors used. If we use brush DC motor we need a driver
like H bridge to provide PWM signals to motor to run as we want. If we want to
get high speed of rotation in some direction, we make duty cycle to become near
100%, that means we apply a positive constant voltage on the motor. And if we
want low speed we make duty cycle to become near 50%,that means the signal is
positive 50% of the period but negative 50% of the period.
But with Brushless motor it differs. The brushless motors are multi-phased, nor-
mally 3 phases, so direct supply of DC power will not turn the motors on. Here,
the Electronic Speed Controllers (ESC) come into play. The ESC generates three
high frequency signals with different but controllable phases continually to keep
the motor turning. The ESC is also able to source a lot of current as the mo-
tors can draw a lot of power. The ESC is an inexpensive motor controller board
that has a battery input and a three phase output for the motor. Each ESC is
controlled independently. The frequency of the signals also varies a lot, but for
a Quadcopter it is recommended that the controller should support high enough
frequency signal, so the motor speeds can be adjusted to be quick enough for op-
timal stability.

2.4 Flight Controller Controlling electronics

The flight control board is the brain of the quadcopter. It houses sensors such as
gyroscopes and accelerometers that determine how fast each of the quadcopters

8
motors spin. Flight control boards range from simple to highly complex. You
can get a controller board that is specially designed for quadcopter which has the
sensors , or you build your own board.We will discuss this topic in control chapter.

2.5 Radio transmitter and receiver

The radio transmitter and receiver allow you to control the quadcopter. You send
orders to the quadcopter.The receiver (on the quadcopter) receives these orders
and make a reference signal to the control system in the controller.

Figure 9: Radio transmitter and receiver

2.6 Propellers
A propeller is mounted on each of the motors. Actually the 4 propellers are not
identical. You will see that two back propellers are tilted to the right, while the
others are tilted to the left. Like I mentioned before, 2 rotors rotate in the opposite
direction to the other two to avoid body spinning.

Figure 10: Propellers

9
2.7 Battery and Charger
We need a DC power supply for the sensors, the controllers , and the motors.
Because the quadcopter is a Flying body , we need the power supply to be on the
frame , so we need a battery. Choosing the oppropriate is not an easy mission ,
because it’s weight affects studying the forces. As for the battery capacity, you
need to do some calculations on:
How much power will your motors draw?
Decide how long flight-time do you want?
How much influence the battery weight should have on the total weight?
We choose the Charger to be suitable for the battery.

10
3 Mechanics of quadcopter
3.1 Mechanics of Propellers
How do rotating propellers provide force ? We will answer this question for one
propeller and discuss different motions in the second part of this chapter . There
are some general definitions to introduce:
Lift force : The force needed to keep an aircraft in the air .
Drag force : force which tries to oppose the motion of the aircraft through the
air.
We will explain the applied lift and drag forces on the wing of an airplane. The
principle of these forces is Fluid Mechanic. A fluid flowing past the surface of a
body exerts a force on it. Lift is the component of this force that is perpendicular
to the oncoming flow direction. It contrasts with the drag force, which is the
component of the surface force parallel to the flow direction .

Figure 11: Wing of aircraft

Figure 12: Flowing fluid on the wing

What causes the total force ? The high velocity of the fluid( air in our case )
above the wing causes low pressure in the same time that low velocity of the fluid
under the wing causes high pressure. This difference of pressure causes the total
force .

11
 Figure 13: Lift and Drag Force

Figure 14: Cause of lift Force

It is clear that we should increase lift force and decrease drag force as much
as possible . But is that related to the principle of Propellers ?! . In fact yes, the
propeller contains two blades. Each blade acts as a wing. The propeller rotates
around its axis, and each blade should be curved up to make the direction of
movement suit each blade. So the Propeller which rotates in clockwise direction
differs from that which rotates in counter Clockwise.
That was for one propeller , I know that you will ask this question : Why do two
propellers rotate clockwise and the other two rotate counter clockwise ? Newton’s
third law says that every action has an equal and opposite reaction, so when pro-
peller’s blades spin in one direction, something must spin in the other to conserve
the angular momentum . To avoid this spinning , we make two propeller rotate
CCW and the other two rotate CW .

3.2 Movement of the quadcopter

An important remark is to know kind of the flight configuration of the quadcopter
as there are two of them: configuration + or configuration X. The difference
between them is the orientation of the X-Y frame in terms of the arms of the
quadcopter which the four propellers make a shape like X or +. We will discuss
X design in this section. Let ( X Y Z ) the coordinate of the earth ( inertial frame
) and ( X’ Y’ Z’ ) the coordinate which is related to the quadcopter.
We will consider that ( X Y Z ) are parallel to ( X’ Y’ Z’ ) when the quadcopter

12
 Figure 15: quadcopter frame and earth frame

is in steady state in the air . Now , we are ready to explain the different motions
that the quadcopter can do.
Taking off and landing : This command is provided by increasing (or decreasing)
all the propeller speeds by the same amount. It leads to a vertical force which
raises or lowers the quadrotor.

Figure 16: the four forces

As in figure 16, if we want to take off we increase the forces F1,F2,F3 and F4
in the same ratio to make
P the sum of these four forces larger than gravity force ,
so as the Newton low F = m.a the quadcopter will be accelerated to above and
will take off . So if we want to land , we can see easily that we need to decrease
the four forces .
Going forward and backward ( in the direction of X axis and opposite X axis ) :

13
If we return to figure 16. Let us discuss what happens if we increase forces F2
and F3 on small equal ration , the back side of the quadcopter will be higher than
the front side of it , as in figure 17 , but the net forces will stay at Z’ axis , one
component on Z axis ( we need to make it equal to the gravity force ) and the
other component will be directed forward , so the quadcopter accelerated forward
. It is easy to see that if we want to go backward we have to increase F1 and F4 .
Now it is easy to understand how the motion to left and right can happened ( in
the direction of Y axis and opposite Y axis ) by increasing forces F2 and F1 (F3
and F4 ).

Figure 17: going forward

Know, what if we want to rotate the quadcopter ( rotate (X’ Y’ ) panel around
Z axis ) ? the idea is very simple , we increase the speed of rotation of the
propellers that rotate in the clockwise direction and decrease it for propellers that
rotate in the counter clockwise direction by the same ratio. So the net force on Z
direction will not change and will be zero on X or Y direction . But as we explain
in the previous section, the quadcopter will spin in counter clockwise direction to
conserve the angular momentum .
After we understand these simple motions , we can make a more complicated

Figure 18: spining

motion which is composition of these simple motions .

14
4 Control the quadcopter
4.1 Control theory background
In order to execute tasks with a quadcopter, one must have some kind of certainty
that the aircraft behavior is predictable and controllable. The greater the cer-
tainty, the more accurate the system can be. Studies and researches in this field
seek to find new techniques and improvements to existent methods in order to
elevate the system predictability and control skills. Most times if we have a theo-
retical model of our plane, it can be relatively easy to find an optimum solution to
our control requirements. However, mathematical models usually come with some
degree of uncertainty in their parameters. The practical behavior of the system
may also be followed by noisy environment (which is unpredictable by definition).
Besides that, the whole system should be capable of rejecting disturbances which
are sometimes predictable and sometimes are not. It is also interesting to note that
the more autonomous the system, the more robust it should be since autonomous
systems tend to have less human interference which sometimes is good (avoid hu-
man labor) but sometimes can be a problem (to correct unpredicted problems).
Without anyone to watch the system and help in correcting errors, the system
should be capable of doing that in itself. This usually requires the most complex
techniques of control and sometimes even involves artificial intelligence.

4.2 variables to be controlled

The variables which have to be controlled to make the quadcopter stable in air
are the distance from the ground ( the height ) and the three angles between
quadcopter frame and reference frame . We have to use output signals as feedback
signals ,through sensors , there is a sensor which gives distance, height but it is
not easy to read angles . To read angles , we use two kinds of sensors, gyroscope
and accelerometer, to read angular velocity and acceleration of each axis. We use
a strategy to mix the accelerometer and gyroscope signals to find a single angle
value for each axis.

15
5 Conclusion
This seminar was useful to clarify basics of quadcopter as it describe in some details
the main components and movements of the quadcopter through the different
paragraphs which are : History, description, uses, components, mecaniscs and
control .

16
 References
[1] Daniel Gheorghiţă, Ionuţ Vı̂ntu, Letiţia Mirea, and Cătălin Brăescu. Quad-
copter control system. In System Theory, Control and Computing (ICSTCC),
2015 19th International Conference on. IEEE, 2015.

[2] Abu Baker Ahmed Ali Ismael. MODELING AND DESIGN OF THE CON-
TROL SYSTEM OF QUADCOPTER. PhD thesis, Sudan University of Sci-
ence and Technology, 2013.

[3] Mohd Khan. Quadcopter flight dynamics. International Journal of Science

and Technology Research, 2014.

[4] R Mendes & Ventura. Assisted teleoperation of quadcopters using obstacle

avoidance. Automation, 2013.

[5] Mustaparudin Mohd Iqbal. Control of a quadcopter. 2016.

[6] Zi Jian Yang and Cong Sun. Design and research of quadcopter navigator. In
Applied Mechanics and Materials, volume 635. Trans Tech Publ, 2014.

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