Arduino RC Plane Flight!

[Power_Broker]

Hey guys,

Check out this video of my most recent Arduino based scratch built RC airplane! Right now it is manually flown (with a scratch built Arduino transmitter), but I plan on developing autopilot modes and eventually make it fully autonomous - including takeoff and landing.

The main flight itself is relatively uneventful, but the takeoff and landing are quite interesting!


Specs:

Ground Station:
- 2 analog Aurora RC Joysticks
- 4 2nd order analog butterworth filters (one for each analog input)
- A set of 3 high/low rate switches (elevator, aileron, and rudder)
- 3S Lipo
- Teensy 3.5
- XBee Pro S1

On Board Avionics:
- 5 HK4711MG high torque digital servos (2 aileron, 1 elevator, 1 rudder, 1 nosewheel)
- 1 UBLOX NEO-6m GPS receiver and active external antenna
- 1 LidarLite V3 altimeter
- 1 BNO055 IMU
- 1 PCA9685 servo driver
- 1 30A ESC
- 1 2200mAh 3S Lipo
- 1 10A BEC
- 1 1200KV brushless motor
- 1 XBee Pro S1
- 1 Arduino Mega 2560

Other:
- Body is 3D printed
- Wings are made from Dollar Store foam board (Readyboard)
- I did all the software, electronics design, and frame design myself (including the 3d modeling and printing)

 

[DamoRC]

Nice - love these types of projects. Are you going to be posting plans / circuits / sketches etc?

DamoRC

 

[RMDC]

I'd love to get a look at that ground station.

 

[Seahawk]

I am with RMDC. I would love to know more about the ground station design and build. Do you have a build page by any chance?

 

[Power_Broker]

@damoRC

It's quite an involved project. Right now there would be so much information, files, and plans to consolidate that I haven't found the energy to make a build page. I might do so in the future, though.


@RMDC, @Seahawk

Here it is below. It's a little janky, but it does the job. I think I went a little overboard by implementing 4 2nd order (active) butterworth analog filters for the joysticks, lol.

 

[RMDC]

The wire struggle is real, friend, but jank is all in the performance. If it does what you intended it to do, that's all you need.

 

[Seahawk]

hmmm....this idea of going overboard. I am not quite sure that I understand what you mean

 

[Tyler.jwll]

Hey Power_Broker, is there a chance I could look at the sketches you used for your project?

 

[Power_Broker]

hmmm....this idea of going overboard. I am not quite sure that I understand what you mean

Well, usually for hobby projects, analog signals aren't filtered and even if they are they're usually only a simple single pole RC filter (just a resistor and capacitor). Butterworth filters are a lot more complex.

Hey Power_Broker, is there a chance I could look at the sketches you used for your project?

Yup, see the attached files. Are you planning on building an Arduino plane?

Note: Plane_IFC.ino is the onboard code and Plane_GS.ino is the ground station code.

 

[rockyboy]

They DIY Creed
"Why do we do it?"
"To prove we can!"

What a great project! The next time you start one of these crazy projects, please do run a build thread as you go along so we can all learn from what you're doing.