ANTONOV-X1: An Autonomous Drone Built with Locally Sourced Materials
I scratch built an X-450mm fully autonomous quadcopter for a student workshop. The frames and the landing gears were built using locally sourceable materials such as PVC and aluminium to keep the cost low. The drone was equipped with an Ardupilot Mega 2.8 Flight Controller Board. Note that this page is still under construction 🛠️👷 But I have added some notes from the development days.
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The Learning Phase
I got into the technical side of drone building as a hobby project and spent hours watching build videos from FliteTest and RCExplorer. After picking up a bunch of tips and tricks, I decided to give it a shot myself. I put together an economical drone from scratch, choosing budget-friendly parts without sacrificing on performance.
Design Exploration and Material Testing
I sketched out a number of frame ideas and started exploring materials such as wood, aluminium and PVC. The goal was to strike the right balance between weight, cost and functionality.
Below is an H-QUAD frame design from Flite test for reference that was used for the first prototype using wood.
Flight controller + Transmitter + Receiver setup
The controller used was an Ardupilot Mega 2.8 with APM Planner. The transmitter and receiver used were the FlySky FS-CT6B 2.4GHz 6CH Transmitter PS/2 PPM with FS-R6B Receiver respectively.
Motor, Battery and ESC stup
Used EMAX MT2216 810KV Brushless DC Motor, Orange 5200mAh 3S 40C/80C Lithium polymer battery Pack and a DYS 30A Brushless Speed Controller ESC Simonk Firmware for Multicopter to balance the power and weight of the drone.
Telemetry planning
For telemetry- 3DR Radio Telemetry 433MHZ Module For APM APM2 Europe and APM Power Module with 5.3V DC BEC, DAL 700TVL FPV camera + Boscam TS5823 Transmitter 32CH 200mW for Multicopter
Flight test
I conducted several tests to ensure the drone was functioning as expected. The first test was to check the stability of the drone and the second test was to check the flight time and battery consumption. The drone was able to fly for 15 minutes on a single charge.