Browse Library
Sign In Start Free Trial
Close icon Search icon
Account
Browse Library Advanced Search Sign In Start Free Trial

Add to playlist

Create a Playlist

Modal Close icon
You need to login to use this feature.
  • Book Overview & Buying Building Smart Drones with ESP8266 and Arduino
  • Table Of Contents Toc
  • Feedback & Rating feedback
Building Smart Drones with ESP8266 and Arduino

Building Smart Drones with ESP8266 and Arduino

By : Syed Omar Faruk Towaha
4.1 (8)
Buy this Book
close
close
Building Smart Drones with ESP8266 and Arduino

Building Smart Drones with ESP8266 and Arduino

4.1 (8)
By: Syed Omar Faruk Towaha
Buy this Book

Overview of this book

With the use of drones, DIY projects have taken off. Programmers are rapidly moving from traditional application programming to developing exciting multi-utility projects. This book will teach you to build industry-level drones with Arduino and ESP8266 and their modified versions of hardware. With this book, you will explore techniques for leveraging the tiny WiFi chip to enhance your drone and control it over a mobile phone. This book will start with teaching you how to solve problems while building your own WiFi controlled Arduino based drone. You will also learn how to build a Quadcopter and a mission critical drone. Moving on you will learn how to build a prototype drone that will be given a mission to complete which it will do it itself. You will also learn to build various exciting projects such as gliding and racing drones. By the end of this book you will learn how to maintain and troubleshoot your drone. By the end of this book, you will have learned to build drones using ESP8266 and Arduino and leverage their functionalities to the fullest.
Table of Contents (15 chapters)
close
close
close
Title Page
Icon
Title Page
Packt Upsell
Icon
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Icon
Contributors
Preface
Icon
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Things to Know Before You Build a Drone
chevron up
Icon
Things to Know Before You Build a Drone
Icon
Drone
Icon
Types of motors used for drones
Icon
Radio transmitter and receiver
Icon
Battery
Icon
Battery adapters/chargers
Icon
Connectors
Icon
Some modules to make the drone smarter
Icon
Summary
2
Assembling Your Drone
Icon
Assembling Your Drone
Icon
Assembling the frame
Icon
Connecting the RC receiver and transmitter
Icon
Connecting the battery
Icon
Binding transmitter to the receiver
Icon
Know the aerodynamics needed for flying a drone
Icon
Saving your drone from crashing
Icon
Check things before flying
Icon
Check the security protocols for flying a drone outside
Icon
Summary
3
Preparing Your Drone for Flying
Icon
Preparing Your Drone for Flying
Icon
What is ESP8266?
Icon
Downloading and installing APM Planner or Mission Planner
Icon
Configuring the quadcopter
Icon
Summary
4
Building a Follow Me Drone
Icon
Building a Follow Me Drone
Icon
What is a Follow Me drone?
Icon
Using a smartphone to enable the Follow Me feature of ArduPilot
Icon
Building an Arduino-based Follow Me drone
Icon
GPS Tracker using ESP8266
Icon
Summary
5
Building a Mission Control Drone
Icon
Building a Mission Control Drone
Icon
Surveying with a drone
Icon
Using drones and delivery man
Icon
Some other tweaks with the Flight Plan screen
Icon
Summary
6
Building a Drone to Take Selfies and Record Videos
Icon
Building a Drone to Take Selfies and Record Videos
Icon
Photography drones
Icon
Requirements
Icon
Assembling the photography drone
Icon
Controlling the camera
Icon
Flying and taking shots
Icon
Controlling the camera gimbal using ESP8266
Icon
Summary
7
Building Prototype Drones – Gliding Drones
Icon
Building Prototype Drones – Gliding Drones
Icon
What is a glider?
Icon
How a glider glides
Icon
Let's build our own glider drone
Icon
Summary
8
Building Prototype Drones – Racing Drones
Icon
Building Prototype Drones – Racing Drones
Icon
Racing drones
Icon
Avoiding obstacles using ESP8266
Icon
Summary
9
Maintaining and Troubleshooting Your Drone
Icon
Maintaining and Troubleshooting Your Drone
Icon
Safety of the drone
Icon
Be careful about the battery
Icon
Storage of the drone
Icon
Carrying a drone
Icon
Before and after flight safety
Icon
Respect the law and privacy
Icon
Troubleshooting your drone
Icon
Diagnosing problems using logs
Icon
Radio control calibration problem
Icon
Summary
Other Books You May Enjoy
Icon
Other Books You May Enjoy
Icon
Leave a review - let other readers know what you think
Index
Icon
Index

Types of motors used for drones

There are a few types of motors that are use to build drones. But as the drone needs to be thrust in the air to float, we should use some powerful motors. The cheap, lightweight, small, and powerful motors used in drones are Brushless DC motors (BLDC). For small drones, we do not use BLDC motors, but instead use small DC gear motors.

Several types of speed controllers

You cannot control the speed of motors of your drone unless you use speed controllers. They enable you to control the voltage and current of the motors and hence control the speed, which is the first priority to move the drone one place to another, after floating in the air. You need to increase and decrease the speed of motor(s) to move the drone forward, backward, left, or right.

The connection between the controller board of the drone and ESC and the battery/power distribution board will be shown in Chapter 2, Assembling Your Drone:

Refer to the following circuit diagram:

Flight control board

This is one of the most important things to control the drone from the ground. There are a number of flight control boards on the market. Some of them are open source and some of them are not. The following list has the most famous and top-rated flight controllers:

  • KK 2.0
  • CC3D
  • Naze32
  • KISS
  • ArduPilot
  • Vector
  • 3DR Pixhawk
  • DJI Nava M
  • LUX flight controller
  • DJI A3

In this book, we will use ArduPilot, as it is cheap and it is best for copters. It also covers our book title. The following picture of some flight controllers.

The ArduPilot is one of the best flight controllers for drones because of the following reasons:

  • It has a free, open source autopilot framework supporting different types of drones
  • It supports hundreds of 3D waypoints
  • It allows you to do the autonomous take-off, landing, and camera control
  • It has 4 MB onboard data-logging memory
  • It has a built-in hardware fail-safe processor
  • It has full mission scripting
  • It is really simple to set up

The following picture is an ArduPilot:

We will discuss more about the ArduPilot later.

End of Section 3
Next Section
notes
bookmark Notes and Bookmarks search Search in title playlist Add to playlist download Download options
font-size Font size

Change the font size

margin-width Margin width

Change margin width

day-mode Day/Sepia/Night Modes

Change background colour

Close icon Search
Country selected
Close icon Your notes and bookmarks

Confirmation

Modal Close icon
claim successful
Order Page Read Now

Buy this book with your credits?

Modal Close icon
Are you sure you want to buy this book with one of your credits?
Close
YES, BUY

Submit Your Feedback

Modal Close icon

Create a Note

Modal Close icon
You need to login to use this feature.

Delete Bookmark

Modal Close icon
Are you sure you want to delete it?
Cancel
Yes, Delete

Delete Note

Modal Close icon
Are you sure you want to delete it?
Cancel
Yes, Delete

Edit Note

Modal Close icon
Write a note (max 255 characters)
Cancel
Update Note