Although the drones are seemingly simple just because of the way the pilot maneuvers it, it is one of the marvelous piece of tech and requires extensive practice to fly this small machine.
Before we get our hands on this machine we need to learn the basics of drones control to fly it which is closely related to the flight mechanics.
How do drone controls work?
Whenever the pilot intends to fly the drone he does so with the help of the controller which is commonly known as the radio transmitter. As soon as the pilot pushes the throttle knob of the transmitter to lift the drone into the air the transmitter sends a signal to the receiver in the drone in the form of radio waves.
The receiver which might be embedded into the drone electronics or simply be a removable one receives the signal which is intended only for it to decode. After the signal gets decoded the receiver transfers the data to the brain of the drone “The Flight Controller.”
The flight controller is a very vital part of the flight control systems without it the pilots will have a very tough time controlling the drone.
The flight controller has many sensors embedded into their circuit. Accelerometer, gyroscopes, magnetometer, air pressure monitor, temperature sensor are a few of them. These sensors provide necessary data to help the flight controller fly the drones.
More advanced drones have inbuilt collision detection and avoidance systems installed which helps the drones to avoid any obstacles and prevent any damage to the drone and to the surroundings. These also help the drones to fly without any human intervention.
Movements in a drone.
The movements in a drone is basically the same as normal aircraft, which are throttle, pitch, roll and yaw.
Before we dive into the movement of a drone we should learn the basic structure of the drone. The drone is designed to house all the electronics into the frame. The frame has the arms on which the motors are fixed, these motors are driven by the BLDC ESCs, the propellers are connected to motors. If there are four motors then the structure of the drone becomes “X” shaped, the drones will always have motors rotating opposite to each other to negate the rotation caused by the rotation of the blades.
If the drone has four propeller then it is called a quad-copter, hexa-copter has six propellers, octa-copter has eight propeller and so on.
Drone’s movement is controlled by varying the propeller speed
Throttle
When the left side stick of the controller is pushed up or down this results in the signal being transmitted from the radio transmitter and the receiver receives the signal and then the flight controller either increases the propeller’s speed or lowers it down.
When the speed of all the propellers is increased simultaneously then the thrust produced by them results in the drone gaining the altitude and vice versa. However, one should keep in mind that the drone does not take off as soon as the throttle stick is pushed up, the propeller rotation is slowly increased and as the thrust becomes slightly more than the total weight of the drone it takes off. Two of the four propeller rotates clockwise and the remaining two rotates counter clockwise to prevent the drone from rotating on either sides.
Roll
Roll movement controls the sideways movement in drones and every other flying machines. In this chapter the drones movement to its sideways is controlled by varying the speeds of the propeller which is explained as below:
Case I
When the right side stick of the controller is pushed to the left indicating that the pilot wants the drone to move sideways to the left, the receiver receives the signal from the transmitter and the rotation speed of the two propellers on the right side of the drone(when viewed from above an in the front direction) increases and the speed of the two propellers on the left side of the drone decreases. this results in the drone moving to its left.
Drone left side roll movement
Case II
When the right side stick of the controller is pushed to the right indicating that the pilot wants the drone to move sideways to the right, the receiver receives the signal from the transmitter and the rotation speed of the two propellers on the left side of the drone increases and the speed of the two propellers on the right side of the drone decreases. this results in the drone moving to its right.
Drone right side roll movement
Pitch
Pitch movement controls the nose dive and nose lift movement in drones and every other flying machines, but the forward movement of drone is also attained by utilizing the pitch movement. In this chapter the drones forward and backward movement is gained by varying the speeds of the propeller which is explained as below:
Case I
When the right side stick of the controller is pushed to the front indicating that the pilot wants the drone to move forwards, the receiver receives the signal from the transmitter and the rotation speed of the two propellers on the backside of the drone increases and the speed of the two propellers on the front side of the drone decreases. this results in the drone moving forwards.
Drone front movement
Case II
When the right side stick of the controller is pulled backwards indicating that the pilot wants the drone to move backwards, the receiver receives the signal from the transmitter and the rotation speed of the two propellers on the front-side of the drone increases and the speed of the two propellers on the backside of the drone decreases. this results in the drone moving backwards.
Drone backwards movement
Yaw
Yaw movement controls the face of direction of the drone and every other flying machines. In this chapter the drones left and right rotation is obtained by varying the speeds of the pairs of propeller rotating clockwise or counter clockwise which is explained as below:
Case I
When the left side stick of the controller is pushed to the left indicating that the pilot wants the drone to rotate its face to the left, the receiver receives the signal from the transmitter and the rotation speed of the two propellers rotating counter clockwise(when the drone is viewed from above) increases and the speed of the two propellers rotating clockwise decreases, this results in the drone rotating to the left counter clockwise.
Drone left yaw movement
Case II
When the left side stick of the controller is pushed to the right indicating that the pilot wants the drone to rotate its face to the right, the receiver receives the signal from the transmitter and the rotation speed of the two propellers rotating clockwise(when the drone is viewed from above) increases and the speed of the two propellers rotating counter clockwise decreases, this results in the drone rotating to the left clockwise.
Drone left yaw movement
How do drones hover?
The above movements explained are the basic flight movements of all the flying machines but what makes helicopters and drones(quad-copters) unique is their ability to hover.
This special movement is achieved when the uplift thrust produced by the propellers is just enough to cancel out the weight of the drone. This net zero force on the drone results the drone to hover in one place.
Conclusion
To conclude the chapter on drone flight mechanics, there are various components inside the complete drone system(including the transmitter) working in tandem to move the drone as required by the pilot.
The transmitter transmits the data input by the pilot, which is received by the receiver inside the drone electronics. This data is intercepted by the flight controller and after processing it with various data from different sensors onboard it signals the ESCs to rotate the BLDC connected to it.
Different movement is obtained by various combination of propeller speed and direction of rotation.
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