Building a Drone from scratch

Igor Stoppa

Embedded Linux Conference

October 2016

V 0.1.0
Disclaimers

Opinions expressed in these foils represent exclusively

to the authors view.

All Logos and Trademarks represented belong to their

respective owners.
Summary
Intro - what is this about? - why from scratch?
Setting the Goals
Requirements: must have, nice to have, long term
Identifying the constraints: time, materials, means.
System design: centralized / distributed, make / buy
The gory details:
HW / SW selection, system architecture
Dealing with physical systems:
motors in real life, inertia, max battery power
Ideas for future expansion
Intro - what is this about?
Learning-by-doing project
Attempt to build a drone of acceptable quality, while:
keeping the cost low;
keeping the overall complexity low;
using off-the-shelf components easily obtainable
through major worldwide retailers.
achieving sufficient modularity to support various
configurations
Intro - Why from scratch?
Many frameworks available, trying to hide the
complexity.
Useful for productization, less open to free form
experimentation.
SW platforms tend to focus on specific HW.
It simplifies the design and the verification, at the
expense of freedom of choice.
Its more interesting
Challenge: use the most out of the HW selected
Setting the Goals
4WD Drone:
less glamorous than flying, but less likely to break.
Easy upgrade path:
no proprietary solutions, compartmentalize functionality.
Low cost:
stock parts from popular kits, SW to improve accuracy.
Ease of debug:
tap into standard interfaces between building blocks.
Requirements

Must Have
Speed control, Steering, Remote Control
Nice to Have
Obstacle detection, Obstacle avoidance, camera stream
Long Term
Remote Computer Vision, Onboard Computer Vision
Constraints to Development
Limited time
Only few hours per week, each week a new feature.
Costs
It shouldnt break the bank, especially when taken as
educational tool/toy. This includes the tools used.
Material
It should rely only on components readily available at
affordable price, through worldwide distribution channels.
System Design
Extensibility
Allow additional HW features. Ex: accelerometer.
Modularity
Segregation of different functionality.
Ease of unit-test and debug, less interference.
Real time response
Deterministic cap to reaction times, in specific cases.
Power Efficiency
Minimize power loss in major use cases (DC motors).
System Design - continued
Low Mass
Minimize negative effects of inertia:
- higher power (peak current) required to alter the state
(steer, speed up/down)
- higher chance to drift
Circumscribe electrical damage
In case of electrical fault (misconnection/short, etc.),
preserve the most expensive component(s) from
damage.
Single Board vs Multiple Boards
Comparison Single Board Multi-Boards
Extensibility Less Yes
Power Efficiency Yes Less
Low Mass Yes Less
Modularity Less Yes
Real time Response Less Yes
Damage Control Less Yes
Considerations
There is no perfect solution - unsurprisingly.

Both can be made to work, with ad-hoc adjustments.

The Multi-Boards approach wins because:

It is better at protecting the Main board.

It can even omit the Main board - ex: simple RC drone.
It enables the use of an RTOS for the time-sensitive tasks.
Overall System Architecture
WIFI or other radio
Vcc

Pull
Main
Up Board

I2C Bus
Micro Micro
M Controller 1 ...
Controller n
Board Board

Optical
encoder
RC-Variant
Vcc
radio Transmitter
Receiver
Micro
Pull
Micro
Controller
Up Controller
Board
Board

I2C Bus
Micro Micro
M Controller 1 ...
Controller n
Board Board

Optical
encoder
Power Distribution - 1 Battery

Motors
9V regulated
Driver

5V
regulated
Control
Logic
Power Distribution - 1 Battery
1 single battery for powering both logic and actuators

Actuators can try to draw more current than the battery

provides while accelerating. Ex: inversion of rotation, start.
Voltage across the battery pack can drop.
The drop can be enough to starve the regulator feeding
the logics.

Solution: limit the max current used by the actuators.

Power Distribution - 1 Battery

9V regulated with Motors

current limiter [7] Driver

5V
regulated
Control
Logic
Motors - options
DC Motor

Pros: fast, naturally continuous, robust.

Cons: needs additional circuitry for speed/position control

Servo Motor

Pros: fast, high torque

Cons: needs modification to be continuous, can vibrate
when idle, more expensive.
Choice: DC Motor
Optical Encoder
DC Motor

Optical
Coupler

Gear Box

Wheel

Frequency proportional
to the rotation speed
Optical Coupler
End Stop for 3D printer
TCST2103 [1]

Fairly cheap
Sufficiently accurate
Compatible with the
dimensions of the optical
encoder.
Driving DC motors - H bridge
Allows to apply voltage
across a load in either
direction.
S1 S3
Various technologies used
Vin M to implement S1..S4
S2
S4
Different levels of
efficiency.
Driving DC motors - signals
CH-A
Micro
DC Motor
Controller 1
Driver
Board
CH-B

CH-A/B
(A/B)O2 (A/B)O1
(A/B)IN2 (A/B)IN1 PWM(A/B)
0 0 DONT CARE FREE SPINNING

0 1 PWM CLOCKWISE

1 0 PWM COUNTER CLOCKWISE

1 1 DONT CARE LOCKED

Motors Drivers - options [2]

TB6612FNG
L298N
More expensive
Cheap
Small Internal Power Loss
Big Internal Power Loss
Small (no need to
Large (HeatSink)
dissipate power)
Low Level Automation - uC
Arduino Pro Mini (AVR328p)
[3]

Has I2C interface

Sufficiently powerful to
perform the required
calculations
For each motor:
Drive status
Dedicate PWM line
Optical Encoder input
Motor Control and Feedback
Motor status control

2 independent GPIOs for each motor

PWM

2 independent counters, each feeding into 2 dividers

Independent control for each motor, allows for calibration

Optical Encoder input

1 GPIO for each motor encoder, as IRQ, to avoid polling

Only the counters are bumped in IRQ context, the rest as
bottom half
Proximity Sensor
Bat-like: send a burst of waves, waits for the echos [8]
2cm - 400cm range
15 degrees aperture

Trigge
r

Pings

Echo
Proximity Sensor
Create pairs that do not
interfere with each other.

Activate the pairs clockwise.

Possible improvement: create

double pairs that are
orthogonal.
Running the microController
main() Program

Main loop with functions

interrupt handlers

8-bit RTOS

Interrupt handlers
Tasks Scheduling
Semaphores
Mailboxes
RTOS selection
FreeRTOS [4] ChibiOS [5]

GPLv3 for non commercial

Only for ATMega323,
GPLv3 for non commercial
but not for ATMega328p
Essential BSP for Mini Pro
Many (mostly dead)
Small footprint
unofficial ports to Mini Pro
Not very small memory
footprint.
I2C Development and Debugging
HW tools summary:
HW debugger/flasher - AVR Dragon
Bus low level protocol analyzer/snooper -
Bus Pirate
Logical analyzer - SigRok + Pulseview
USB scope - Hantek + Openhantek
Full dissertation on I2C from ELC NA 2016 [6].
I2C High Level Protocol debugging
Need to create
custom tools, for
non-trivial testing
of both the
protocol and the
implementation
of the API.
Main Board Selection
Requirements
It must run linux
Low power consumption
I2C interface - master
WiFi interface
Small form factor
USB OTG/Master
Main Board Selection
Options

Intel Edison [9]

Pros: powerful, small.
Cons: $$, modules $$
Next Thing CHIP [10]
Pros: cheap
Cons: delayed
Intel Joule [11]
Pros: powerful
Cons: $$$,
Geppetto PCB $$$
Future
Accelerometer
Optical Flow cameras on the sides
Computer Vision
GPS
LIDAR
Port to quadcopter.
Questions?
Thank you!
Backup Info
References
[1]. http://www.alldatasheet.com/datasheet-pdf/pdf/26411/VISHAY/TCST2103.html
[2]. http://forum.makeblock.cc/t/the-review-of-dc-motor-drivers-l298n-tb6612fng-and-lv8406t/372
[3]. https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11113
[4]. http://www.freertos.org/
[5]. http://www.chibios.org/dokuwiki/doku.php
[6]. http://events.linuxfoundation.org/sites/events/files/slides/ELC%202016%20-%20I2C%20hacki
ng%20demystified_0.pdf
[7]. http://www.ti.com/product/LM2596
[8]. http://www.micropik.com/PDF/HCSR04.pdf
[9]. http://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/do-it-yourself/edison.html
[10]. https://getchip.com/
[11].