Subscale Autonomous Quadcopter

750g Autonomous Quadcopter

This project focuses on designing and building an autonomous quadcopter as an intro to ArduPilot. The PolyUAS club hosted an internal competition to develop flight testing/design skills before we built our primary package delivery aircraft. I developed lightweight frames in Fusion 360, transitioning from carbon fiber to reinforced PLA for less weight and better manufacturability.

The aircraft runs ArduCopter firmware with MAVLink telemetry over ELRS radio, enabling fully autonomous waypoint navigation. The system achieved over 25 minutes of flight and 3 km of autonomous travel during testing.

Figure 1: Fully assembled aircrafts ready for flight testing.

Figure 2: First revision of the frame.

Figure 3: Second rev of the frame designed for 4mm carbon weave.

Figure 4: Delamination from waterjet from cut.

Figure 4: Final frame designed for 3D printing.

Mission

Defined a loop in the mission planner with takeoff and RTL integrated as steps. Communication via ELRS radio protocol using wifi backpack to a laptop (Figure 6).

Figure 5: Mission Planner interface with defined loop at testing site.

Figure 6: Illustration of C2.

Figure 7: Aircraft during flight.

Figure 8: Both quads ready to fly.

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