Drone Controller built on the ESP32 Microcontroller

This is a drone controller project that I did for my 5th year project. The project was aimed at developing a drone with the capacity to be used in the fight against bandits in the central rift region of Kenya. This was a joint interdisciplinary project that inolved electrical and mechanical students.

My task was to develop a drone controller that allowed for communication between the drone and the pilot. You can read my more exhaustive report from Report folder

Drone Controller Front-view.jpg Drone Controller Hardware Drone Controller Receiver Hardware Drone Controller Receiver Hardware Back-view

Main Objective

To design, develop and test systems for a drone as a security solution with the capacity to achieve flight and perfom surveillance and reconnaisancce security missions.

Specific Objectives

1. To design and implement an effective, secure and stable communication system that will enable transfer of flight data and logs from the UAV as well as provide a control channel to fly the UAV over ling distances.
2. To design and implement a ground control system that will generate control signals to fly the UAV.
3. To design and implement an interface to display operation status and assist in drone piloting.
4. To design and implement a good power supply system to provide the right amount of power for the ground station system.
5. To design a printed circuit for the ground and UAV system implementation.
6. To design a storage mechanism to store flight data and logs. Should use real time in data storage.
7. To design a fast and effecient software to run the processes.

Block Diagram of the Full Electronic System

Only shows my area of work. The Microcontroller in the drone system segment is connected to driver circuits to enable flight.

Programming Language

C++

Communication Interfaces and Protocols used

SPI I2C NTP Serial Communication

Software used

• Arduino software - An Integrated Design Environment allowing for code development and compiling.
• Proteus - For general component simulation
• KiCAD - For circuit design and Schematic
• MatLab - For antenna design simulation
• FreeRTOS - A Real-time Operating System for Embedded microcontrollers. Allows for multitasking capabilities

Observations

Data from the Joysticks was transferred to the receiver terminal. A range of 50metres was achieved using ASK transmitter and Receiver as the SX1278 were out of stock at the time. A higher range could have been achieved if the sx1278 modules were used instead. Read my report in the Report folders. A data file containing a log of all the joystick movements, sensor readings and operations is saved onto the SD card.