Helicopter/Howard Community College/Spring2012/p2502JASS

Problem Statement
Build a helicopter to maneuver autonomously. To this end, create an aircraft structure, control multiple ESC's, balance the structure via a gimbal mechanism, design for a payload and power supply, and develop flight control software.

Team Members

 * Jromanch0088
 * Spark93
 * Shatton8111
 * Amirrezasaharkhiz

Summary
We're building an autonomous quadcopter. The quadcopter will be a kind of helicopter that is balanced by four equally powered motors. By giving it software to control its movements and act independently, we hope to give it "a mind of its own."

Story
What we did over the project was mostly exploration of the motors and different programs, the lift test was critical to seeing how much each individual motor could lift. Once extensive testing on this was done, we moved the motors to the see saw. This allowed us to see how to change the speeds of the individual motors to change the position of the see saw. We ran into a lot of trouble with keeping the motors powered though. We are still confused but we did fix a floating ground issue. The gyro is almost finished. As well as the accelerometer has finally been figured out to be giving us values we can understand.

Decision List
None

Material List
We used the following materials during the course of our project. For materials for which examples could not be found, facsimiles have been substituted.

In order to continue this project and progress to further goals, the following kind of materials are recommended. The specific items are just examples.

Software List

 * Arduino Software Development Kit
 * Processing Software Development Kit
 * WaveForms

Time
53.15 Hours

Tutorials
None

Next Steps
The next steps are to finish constructing a gimbal; get all four motors hooked up to a single arduino; construct the actual frame with motors, batteries, ESCs, and the Arduino; and then go on to testing. Also Build a Better Landing gear for the Parrot Drone.