ECE 477: Digital Systems Senior Design
v1.0
Initial Project Proposal
Year: 2014 Semester: Fall
Creation Date: April, 2014
Project Name: Extreme Sports UAV
Last Modified: July 31, 2017
Team Members:
Member 1:
Member 2:
Member 3:
Member 4:
Yuhao Chen
Xianzhe Zhou
Yuchen Cui
Enpei Xi
Email:
Email:
Email:
Email:
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
1.0 Description of Problem:
Extreme sport activities are physically challenging and visually stunning. Because of their
inherent danger and physical requirements, there is not a cost effective way to fully video record
the activities for individual extreme sport enthusiasts. Current ways of recording extreme sport
activities include follow-up helicopters, camera-equipped safety helmets, fixed point cameras,
smartphones, or in some cases, pair up camerists. These video recording methods all have their
limitations in terms of cost, safety, or video quality. These limitations affect every extreme sport
enthusiast.
2.0 Proposed Solution:
In order to give extreme sport enthusiasts a cost effective and safe way to fully video record
their own activities, our team proposes to design a UAV that follows an extreme sport performer
and video record his/her entire activity. A commercial UAV, including the controlling module,
will be purchased to serve as the intelligent carrier of the video recorder. The commercial UAV
should be able to make turns and to float in air in a stable manner. An autopilot system will be
developed using programmable chip(s) to integrate into the UAV control system:
a. The UAV will have the ability to perform auto takeoff and landing.
b. GPS will be integrated and communicate to a smartphone to track the general location of a
user, assuming the user carries the smartphone when performing an activity.
c. As the UAV approaches the target, close up automatic navigation system will be utilized
to rotate the UAV and to point the camera to the user. Possible solutions to the close up
navigation system can be either using an infrared sensor to detect the user or detecting a
beaker carried by the user.
d. A video recorder or camera will be mounted on the UAV to video record.
e. There will be a battery alarming system to prevent the UAV from unexpected falling due
to power outage.
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ECE 477: Digital Systems Senior Design
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3.0 ECE477 Course Requirements Satisfaction
3.1 Expected Microcontroller Responsibilities
A microcontroller will be used to serve as a communication interface between the UAV and
its user. The microcontroller will interface with the UAV flight controller to provide flight
instruction based on the user’s location. The microcontroller will also make use of a GPS, a
computer vision module and range detectors to calculate positions and movements.
3.2 Expected Printed Circuit Responsibilities
Our Printed Circuit Board will incorporate the microcontroller, a Bluetooth module, a radio
receiver, a voltage control module and interfaces to other peripherals such as the flight controller,
range detectors, power supply and the GPS module.
4.0 Market Analysis:
Our project will be a solution to extreme sport activity recording. It reduces the safety
concern, which allows the users to fully focus on sports performance. In addition, our
autonomous UAV system will be affordable to extreme sport enthusiasts since all the software
platforms we use are open-source.
Therefore, in terms of potential market, our project is targeting the expanding niche market
that consists of extreme sports enthusiasts such as rock-climbers and mountain climbers. There is
no exact number of extreme sports enthusiasts reported, however, according to A. Mozes [1],
there are more than 4 million injuries linked to extreme sports since 2000 and now extreme
sports cause 40,000 head and neck injuries annually, from which one can infer how large the
number of active extreme sports enthusiasts there are.
5.0 Competitive Analysis:
5.1 Preliminary Patent Analysis
5.1.1 Patent #1: Europe Patent Application EP1901153 A1
Patent Title: Control system for unmanned 4-rotor-helicopter
Patent Holder: OFFIS e.V.
Patent Filing Date: Sep. 12, 2006
This patent [2], assigned to OFFIS, will be mainly used by miniature quadrotor helicopter. The
advantage of this invention is it takes into consideration when the sensors cannot be perfectly
mounted in center of gravity, or the center of gravity is initially shifted out of the origin, the
system can still fix the coordinate frame. The primary disadvantage is, although it was
demonstrated successfully outdoors, this invention was designed basically for indoor
surveillance purpose and in an indoor setting.
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ECE 477: Digital Systems Senior Design
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5.1.2 Patent #2: China Patent Application CN 203127141 U
Patent Title: Multi-rotor wing unmanned aerial vehicle
Patent Holder: Shenzhen Dajiang Innovation Technology Co., Ltd.
Patent Filing Date: Dec 13, 2012
This patent [3], assigned to Shenzhen Dajiang Innovation Technology Co., will be mainly
used in a multi-rotor flying vehicle. The patent solves the sensor interferences issue by providing
a housing that separates the circuit board and motor, therefore, reducing noise. The primary
disadvantage of this patent is that extra loading will be added to the multi rotor that consumes
extra power for flying which results in reduce flight times. Although reducing noise is one of our
goals, it is not the primary goal of our project. Constructing a housing to improve noise reduction
is in our considerations.
5.1.3 Patent #3: U.S Patent Application US 8265808 B2
Patent Title: Autonomous and automatic landing system for drones
Patent Holder: Patrick Garrec, Pascal Cornic
Patent Filing Date: Dec 1, 2006
This patent [4] is related to drone landing guidance. It utilizes electromagnetic detecting and
locating devices, which use a beacon for continuous wave transmission to improve the angular
position of the drone. The information transmitted by the beacon also optimizes the landing path.
The invention might be applied to our automatic takeoff and landing system.
5.2 Commercial Product Analysis:
5.2.1 Commercial Product #1: AR Drone 2.0
AR Drone 2.0 [5] is a very competitive
commercial product. It is controlled by a portable
mobile device, such as a smart phone, and has a
720p HD camera. It is designed for people to have
fun flying a quadcopter. For electronics, AR Drone
uses a 1GHz 32-bit ARM Cortex A8 processor
with the Linux operating system. 1Gbit DDR2
Figure 5.2.1: AR Drone with detailed view
RAM is used for speeding up the calculations.
Also, standard quadcopter sensors are used, such as accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer,
pressure sensor, and ultrasonic sensor. However, Wi-Fi is the only communication between the
user and the quadcopter. For hardware AR Drone uses carbon fiber tubes and fiber charged nylon
plastic parts to reduce the weight. The total weight is 380g. Along with small weight, AR Drone
uses 4 brushless motors with 14.5W 28,500 RPM to fly high and fast. Detail specifications are
provided on the AR Drone website. Overall, AR Drone is a good product of playing for fun.
Communication through Wi-Fi is a downside for users who fly the drone outdoors with no Wi-Fi
access.
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5.2.2 Commercial Product #2: DJI Phantom 2 Vision
DJI Phantom 2 Vision [6] is a camera-carrying
quadcopter controlled by a radio controller operating
at 5.728 – 5.85 GHz and its 1080p camera is
controlled by a portable mobile device. It is designed
with photography in mind. Phantom 2 lacks
publically available hardware and electronics
specifications. Phantom 2 weights 1060g. Detail
information is provided on the AR Drone websites.
Overall, Phantom 2’s functional objective is quite
similar to ours but it does not have any autopilot
system that our proposed design targets at.
Figure 5.2.2: DJI Phantom 2
5.2.3 Commercial Product #3: XP2 Quadcopter
XP2 Quadcopter [7] is a commercial product for
professional video recording. It is controlled
remotely via RF communication. Some accessories
and attachments are available. XP2 also lacks
publically available hardware and electronics
specifications .XP2 weights 435g. Detailed
information is provided on the XP2 website. Overall,
XP2 is not as competitive as previous products. It’s a
general quadcopter with attachable camera.
Figure 5.2.3: XP2 overview
5.3 Open Source Project Analysis:
5.3.1 Open Source Project #1: MultiWiiCopter
The MultiWiiCopter [8] is an open source flight control system aiming to provide the brain of
an RC controlled multi-rotor flying platform. It is compatible with several hardware boards and
sensors. The system supports configurations from
bicopter to octocopter. When associated with an
accelerometer, MultiWii is able to drive 2 servos for
PITCH and ROLL gimbal system adjustment. This
open source project is most valuable to us because
we are going to use this very system as our flight
control unit for our quadcopter. We determined to
use this system because the complete functionality
and stability have been demonstrated through
various projects online, such as the MultiWii quad
shown in Figure 5.3.1.
Figure 5.3.1: MultiWii Project
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ECE 477: Digital Systems Senior Design
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5.3.2 Open Source Project #2: MikroKopters
MikroKopters [9] is universal aerial platform. On October 24th, 2006, Holger Buss and Ingo
Busker brought MK to life with a great community of Mikrokopter pilots. 6 months later, the
Mikrokopter hovered steadily. A short time later, accessories were added. It is now able to
perform semi-autonomous flights. The Mikrokopter is capable of carrying the weight of a GoPro
camera. For more competitive pilots the Mikrokopter offers enough agility to fly loops (over
pitch and roll-axes). The mechanical design of Mikrokopter is of great interest to our team
because our quadcopter is going to carry a camera to fulfill its tasks similar to Mikrokopter. We
are going to adapt both the software and hardware design of this project into ours and make it a
fully autonomous quadcopter.
5.3.3 Open Source Project #3: Crazyflie
Crazyflie [10] is a small quadcopter that stated with a simple idea: get an electronic board to
fly. The Crazyflie quadcopter was started late 2009 as a competence development project in the
Swedish consulting company Epsilon AB in which all three of the original designers were
employed. They then set up a website for the project where all the software and hardware design
are open and a good amount of design logs and documents are available for users to study. The
mechanics of this project is very different from ours due to the different size of designs.
However, the software algorithms are very useful to us, in which we would specifically look into
its implementation of wireless communication between the quadcopter and the ground station.
6.0 Sources Cited:
[1] A. Mozes (2014). ‘Exreme Sports’ Linked to 40,000 Head and Neck Injuries per year.
Available: http://consumer.healthday.com/general-health-information-16/injury-healthnews-413/extreme-sports-linked-to-40-000-head-and-neck-injuries-per-year-685660.html
[2] M. Kemper (2006). Control system for unmanned 4-rotor-helicopter. Available:
https://www.google.com/patents/EP1901153A1
[3] T. Wang (2012). Multi-rotor wing unmanned aerial vehicle. Available:
https://www.google.com/patents/CN203127141U
[4] Garrec, Patrick. "Patent US8265808 - Autonomous and Automatic Landing System for
Drones - Google Patents." Google Books. U.S Patent Office, 1 Dec. 2006. Web. 12 Mar.
2014.
[5] Parrot AR. Drone 2.0 (2012). AR.Drone 2.0 Parrot new wi-fi quadricopter Technical
Specifications State of the Art Technology. Available: http://ardrone2.parrot.com/ardrone2/specifications/
[6] DJI The Future of Possible (2014). Phantom 2 Vision - Tech Specs. Available:
http://www.dji.com/product/phantom-2-vision/spec
[7] XPROHELI (2014). XP2 Quadcopter Professional Aerial photo and video multirotor
platform. Available: http://xproheli.com/
[8] MultiWii (2014) MultiWii.com. Available: http://www.multiwii.com/
[9] MikroKopter (2006) MikroKopter.de Available: http://www.mikrokopter.de/en/home
[10] Bitcraze (2009) Crazyflie | Bitcraze. Available: http://www.bitcraze.se/
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