WORKSHOP ON QUADCOPTER

Two day workshop cum championship on Quad-Copter was organized by Mechanical Engineering Department of Dronacharya College Of Engineering, Gurgaon in collaboration with Robosapiens Technologies Pvt. Ltd in the college campus on 5th – 6th November 2015.

The purpose of the workshop was to train the students on “QuadCopter”, its design and its making. The faculty coordinators for the event were Mr. Vikas Sahu and Ms. Manjari Saxena. A total of Sixty students participated in the event.

The highlight of the workshop were :

1. Designing of QuadCopter

2. Uses of Actuators and Motors

3. Assembling of various Component's

4. Use of software Firmware Update

5. Calibration of Transmitter and Receiver

6. Live flying with Experts Guidance

Mr. Ravinder Singh, resource person and eminent Scientist from RoboSapiens Technologies was welcomed by the organizing team. Mr. Singh talked about the history, branches, concepts and applications of QuadCopter. He also shared the concepts of designing the QuadCopter using various sensors and microcontrollers. He said that a quadrotor helicopter or quadrotor, is a multicolor helicopter that is lifted and propelled by four rotors. Quadcopters are classified as rotorcraft, because their lift is generated by a set of rotors.

He then explained that Quadcopters generally use two pairs of identical fixed pitched propellers; two clockwise (CW) and two counter-clockwise (CCW). He added that Quadcopters are a useful tool for researchers to test new ideas in different fields, like flight control theory, navigation, real time systems, and robotics. It is also used for surveillance and investigation by military as well as search and rescue missions in case of disasters in urban areas. He explained the flight dynamics to the participants. He explained that each rotor produces both a thrust and torque about its centre of rotation, and a drag force opposite to the vehicle's direction of flight. If all rotors are spinning at the same angular, with rotors one and three rotating clockwise and rotors two and four anticlockwise, the net aerodynamic torque, then the angular acceleration about the yaw axis, is exactly zero. It explains that yaw stabilizing rotor of conventional helicopters is not needed.

Next Session students were introduced to Electronic Speed Controller (ESC). The students came to know about the features working pulse width modulation, interfacing of escs, start up procedures, protection methods and about trouble shooting. Then the students were given an Overview of Sensor types and how it is used in QuadCopter and interfacing of sensors. Then a session on Introduction to Flight Controller Board was taken. This session dealt with the basics of Microcontroller. The focus was on the AVR series micro controller- ATMega168, which is one of the most powerful and widely used 8 bit micro controller and also explained the difference between Lithium Ion (Li-ion) and Lithium Polymer (Lipo) Battery.

Next day the session started with explanation of Radio Devices and its uses of rc remote control, understanding radio transmitter, types of radio transmitter and basic functionalities of rc transmitter. He also conducted Lab Session in which students assembling the kit and installing the Software and Debugging programme. The participants then feeded the data into QuadCopter for it’s functionality and finally designed and flew their own QuadCopters.

After the workshop a Competition was conducted for the participants to design a QuadCopter.

Winners of the competition were :

This workshop cum competition was very enriching for the participating students. They came to know a lot about Quadcopters.