Drones, quadcopters, Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): whatever they're called, remotely-controlled aircraft have changed the way we see the world, the way we manage crops, the way we sell real estate, and the way we make war. This book contains tutorials about how to understand what drones can do, and projects about how to make your own flying craft, from some of the earliest practitioners in the field.
Absolutely no experience needed! Build your drone, step-by-step, with this full-color, hands-on guide! You’ve heard about drones. You’ve seen drones. Now, build your own—it’s a lot easier than you think! Drones are the newest frontier for the DIY/maker community, and you don’t need to be a technical expert to build one. John Baichtal, the #1 author of hardware hacking books for beginners, will teach you all the skills you need. First, Baichtal shows you the amazing drones others have built. Then, he walks you through several complete projects: quadcopters, UAVs, ROVs, and more. Not ready to start from scratch? No problem: Baichtal helps you choose from today’s best new kits. Hundreds of full-color step-by-step photos teach you every step, every skill. When you’re ready for more advanced concepts, Baichtal explains them in plain English. Discover what drones are and why they’re so exciting Explore today’s most imaginative projects, from 3D-printed mini quadcopters to floating robot armies Compare kits, from $200 up: Parallax ELEV-8, DJI Phantom 2 Vision+, OpenROV, Actobotics Nomad, Brooklyn Aerodrome Flack, and more Create your own practical Drone Builder’s Workbench Build complete rocket, blimp, waterborne, and automotive drones Construct both fully autonomous and radio-controlled drones Choose and assemble your chassis (airframe), motor, props, flight control, power system, accessories, and software Integrate Arduino to make radio-controlled drones operate autonomously Teach a drone to navigate via RFID tags Learn all the basic electronics and programming you’ll need
Make: Drones will help the widest possible audience understand how drones work by providing several DIY drone projects based on the world's most popular robot controller--the Arduino. The information imparted in this book will show Makers how to build better drones and be better drone pilots, and incidentally it will have applications in almost any robotics project. Why Arduino? Makers know Arduinos and their accessories, they are widely available and inexpensive, and there is strong community support. Open source flight-control code is available for Arduino, and flying is the hook that makes it exciting, even magical, for so many people. Arduino is not only a powerful board in its own right, but it's used as the controller of most inexpensive 3d printers, many desktop CNCs, and the majority of open source drone platforms.
Drones, quadcopters, Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs): whatever they're called, remotely-controlled aircraft have changed the way we see the world, the way we manage crops, the way we sell real estate, and the way we make war. This book contains tutorials about how to understand what drones can do, and projects about how to make your own flying craft, from some of the earliest practitioners in the field.
Leverage the WiFi chip to build exciting Quadcopters Key Features Learn to create a fully functional Drone with Arduino and ESP8266 and their modified versions of hardware. Enhance your drone's functionalities by implementing smart features. A project-based guide that will get you developing next-level drones to help you monitor a particular area with mobile-like devices. Book Description 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. What you will learn Includes a number of projects that utilize different ESP8266 and Arduino capabilities, while interfacing with external hardware Covers electrical engineering and programming concepts, interfacing with the World through analog and digital sensors, communicating with a computer and other devices, and internet connectivity Control and fly your quadcopter, taking into account weather conditions Build a drone that can follow the user wherever he/she goes Build a mission-control drone and learn how to use it effectively Maintain your vehicle as much as possible and repair it whenever required Who this book is for If you are a programmer or a DIY enthusiast and keen to create a fully functional drone with Arduino and ESP8266, then this book is for you. Basic skills in electronics and programming would be beneficial. This book is not for the beginners as it includes lots of ideas not detailed how you can do that. If you are a beginner, then you might get lost here. The prerequisites of the book include a good knowledge of Arduino, electronics, programming in C or C++ and lots of interest in creating things out of nothing.
Want to make something that can fly? How about a flying robot? In this book, you'll learn how drones work, how to solve some of the engineering challenges a drone presents, and how to build your own--an autonomous quadcopter that you can build, customize, and fly. Your drone will be your eyes in the sky and in places where a human could never get to-much less fit!
Build a custom multirotor aircraft! Build and customize radio-controlled quadcopters that take off, land, hover, and soar. Build Your Own Quadcopter: Power Up Your Designs with the Parallax Elev-8 features step-by-step assembly plans and experiments that will have you launching fully functioning quadcopters in no time. Discover how to connect Elev-8 components, program the microcontroller, use GPS, and safely fly your quadcopter. This fun, do-it-yourself guide fuels your creativity with ideas for radical enhancements, including return-to-home functionality, formation flying, and even artificial intelligence! Understand the principles that govern how quadcopters fly Explore the parts included in your Parallax Elev-8 kit Follow illustrated instructions and assemble a basic 'copter Connect the Parallax chip to a PC and write Spin and C programs Build radio-controlled systems that minimize interference Add GPS and track your aircraft through Google Earth Beam flight information to smartphones with WiFi and XBee technology Mount cameras and stream real-time video back to the ground Train to safely operate a quadcopter using flight simulation software
Within the last couple of years, the usage of drones in both the public and private (military) sector has exploded. People are talking about drones, building drones, and something most people didn’t know of a few years ago is now a household name. Build a Drone will not only teach you how to build your very own drone, but will explain their history in the military and the impact they will have—and are starting to have—on our everyday lives. Author Barry Davies has built drones for DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and AAI (one of America’s largest drone manufacturers), as well as six experimental ones for MIT. He not only understands their use in the world, but knows the ins-and-outs of how they can be created and handled. Explained in simple terms with full-color step-by-step directions, Davies will explain how to build your very own drone from ones created specifically for this book. Whether you plan on using drones for recreation or a more serious purpose (from search and rescue through farming to scanning construction work on a high-rise apartment buildings), Build a Drone will make sure that you not only understand how to construct a drone, but the proper and safe ways to maintain and handle them.
Explore a complex mechanical system where electronics and mechanical engineers work together as a cross-functional team. Using a working example, this book is a practical “how to” guide to designing a drone system. As system design becomes more and more complicated, systematic, and organized, there is an increasingly large gap in how system design happens in the industry versus what is taught in academia. While the system design basics and fundamentals mostly remain the same, the process, flow, considerations, and tools applied in industry are far different than that in academia. Designing Drone Systems takes you through the entire flow from system conception to design to production, bridging the knowledge gap between academia and the industry as you build your own drone systems. What You’ll LearnGain a high level understanding of drone systems Design a drone systems and elaborating the various aspects and considerations of design Review the principles of the industrial system design process/flow, and the guidelines for drone systems Look at the challenges, limitations, best practices, and patterns of system design Who This Book Is For Primarily for beginning or aspiring system design experts, recent graduates, and system design engineers. Teachers, trainers, and system design mentors can also benefit from this content.
FPV Flight Dynamics is the in-depth handbook designed to catapult Rookies and Intermediates into the Advanced levels and beyond! Whether you’re new to UAVs, a camera drone operator looking to dive into Acro, or an experienced miniquad ripper stuck in FPV purgatory, this guide will arm you with the skills and knowledge that you’ll need to break through plateaus and master your instrument. This visual manual spans 30 chapters and features over 220 full-color illustrations, including stick schematics, 3D diagrams, photos, and infographics. You’ll be presented with actionable strategies that can be employed immediately to make the greatest leaps in skill level with the least amount of time, money, and frustration possible. Master all three of FPV’s disciplines (racing, freestyle, and professional cinematic) by learning what to practice, how to practice it, and, most importantly, in which order! This book offers detailed analyses on more than 50 unique tricks, maneuvers, and flight techniques, including: 31 FUNDAMENTAL MANEUVERS Static Climbs and Drops, medial and lateral Dynamic Climbs, ascending Half-Loops, Convex Climbs, Pullbacks, Parachutes, Diving Helixes, Two-Dimensional Sweeping Turns (2D Sweeps), S-Turns, 180° Hairpin Turns, 3D Sweeps, Coils, Rippled Turns, Elliptical Orbits, Textbook Power Loops, Parachuting Power Loops, Aerial Corkscrews, Barrel Rolls, Stunted Barrel Rolls, Aileron Rolls, the Textbook Split-S, Vaulting Split-S, and Sliding Split-S, Level Orbits, Knife-Edge Orbits, Immelmann Turns, Half Cuban Eights, High Jumps, and Hammer Throws 19 FREESTYLE TRICKS Frontflips, Backflips, Level Yaw Spins, Snap Rolls, Wallkicks, Kamikazes, Juicy Flicks, Vanny Rolls, Proxy Knockbacks and Slingshots, Rewinds, Wall Rides, Stall-Slide Corkscrews, Rubik’s Cubes, Inverted Yaw Spins, Mattyflips, Trebuchets, Inverted Orbits (aka Cyclones/Trippy Spins), Keeling Turns, and Windmills Learn how to: Manipulate your quadcopter’s speed and momentum with techniques like Sprints, Coasts, Stalls, Short-Rooks and Full-Rooks, Rook-n-Rolls, and Blips Negotiate advanced racing complexes like Chicanes/Slaloms, Gated Corkscrews, and coiled obstacles like Ladders Manage your LiPo batteries, including charging, discharging, and storage strategies Dissect your quadcopter, and understand each of its components, their technical specifications, and how they’re all related and interact with one another Chase mobile subjects like drift cars and downhill skiers with advanced cinematic shot-framing techniques, like Sidewinding Sweeps via the quadcopter’s secondary flight stance, the Outside Stance Prioritize visual references in your field of view, so you always know what to be looking at and when This is THE definitive guide to FPV, and a must-read for all newcomers to the hobby! Pick up a copy today and take your skills to the next level! BECOME THE MACHINE
