Joop Brokking has a lot of info on his site. There is also a neat self balancing robot, amongst other things.
http://www.brokking.net/ymfc-3d_v2_main.html

 

No, they fly in any direction by tilting them. Which means you have to be able to absolutely control the tilt angle. This requires accelerometers and gyroscopic sensors and lots of very complicated programming.

Whilst that is true of many large scale vectored-thrust aircraft, a basic quadcopter's motors are fixed vertically; the varying thrust vector comes from differential forward/rear or left/right rotor speeds (or a combination of both).

 

I am very interested in developing drone but I want to understand the basic principle of drone before making it. I don't want to make a complex drone but want to make simple drone that makes it easy for me to understand its basic principle.

My only requirement is that my drone should be a flying drone It should be control by remote and it can fly for at least 15 minutes.

I found in my research that I need four motors and one battery.

I don't understand how to design complete system, where to start and how to proceed so I need your help in designing.

Welcome to AAC.

Building a drone is an interesting project. Most folks who do build their own drones take advantage of existing subsystems like battery management systems and flight controllers among others.

While some people choose to write their own software, most either use well stablished open source options as is, or modify them in some way. Even modifying existing software is a hard task for something as complex as managing the 3D flight of a multicopter.

You state your goal as learning the basic principles of drones and their flight. This is a good goal, and certainly worth pursuing but it begins to breakdown when you specify how you want to go about learning.

The idea that is is “simpler” to build a multicopter capable of remote control flight than to use existing designs and components to make something that works is just plain wrong. What you will learn is that in the case of flying vehicles intended to attain controlled flight there is no simple case.

If you said something like “I want to learn about how drones work so I intend to build a small battery powered helicopter with two counter-rotating rotors that can fly straight up and autogyro down”, that might make some sense. It would give you the opportunity to learn the aeronautics and mechanics of rotor-based aircraft.

But your proposition, and description of your process so far “I know I need motors and a battery, and I need a microcontroller, but how do I connect that stuff together?” makes it clear, to the informed observer, that you simply have no idea concerning the complexity of what you are trying to do, and that your attempts to “simplify” are actually doing the opposite.

Someone suggested buying a drone. I think this is an excellent idea. It could be a very cheap one, just a few dollars. It will give you a chance to observe the flight, maybe make changes to the mechanism, disassemble it to see how it is built, etc. After that, you might try building an inexpensive drone kit that uses standard parts and open source software.

Next you could put together your own version from various pre-built subsystems to do what you want. Then, if you are still enthusiastic, you might try learning and modifying the flight controller software. At that point, you might be ready to build a “simple drone that flies for 15 minutes and maneuvers up, down, left, and right”. Because that “simple drone“ is not a simple project, and advanced knowledge is required to successfully design and build it.

All of this is not to discourage you but to try to help you with the 20/20 hindsight of experience. What you stated you want to do “learn about drones” and what you said you want to do to accomplish that “build something about which I have no idea“ are not compatible.

If you pursue this, I wish you luck and success. But you should really consider the accumulated wisdom of the folks who have responded here and take a different approach. You simply will not succeed in either thing you say you want if you try to do what you are saying you want to do, and no one can or will answer your questions about the huge gap between a woefully inadequate proposal and parts list, and reality.

[EDIT: typo correction]

 

As I mentioned in post #21, Joop Brokking has info. In fact, he has full construction info of an Arduino based quad copter and his story would be well worth the read just to see what is required to build and fly one successfully.
A good amount of study before you make your own is not a bad thing to do. And as Ya'akav says, maybe buy a cheap one to start with and modify it as you learn more.

 

Whilst that is true of many large scale vectored-thrust aircraft, a basic quadcopter's motors are fixed vertically; the varying thrust vector comes from differential forward/rear or left/right rotor speeds (or a combination of both).

View attachment 273027

Wouldn’t that cause it to tilt?

 

Wouldn’t that cause it to tilt?

Yes. That is how it maneuvers.

 

The motors in a cheap RC model quadcopter run from a single Li-PO battery cell and have brushes that soon wear out. The motors were originally designed to open and close a CD tray that runs for very short and seldom durations.

Good quality RC model quadcopters, helicopters, airplanes and cars use brushless motors that do not wear out.

 

Really, helicopter can provide much of the same functionality, without needing a computer to keep it under control. In addition, if a compromise can be accepted, then the lift rotor can be a fixed pitch , making things far simpler. With a variable speed motor flying height can be much simpler to control.
Now a question: What is the planned purpose of the drone, flying platform??? The purpose determines the requirements.
Look at those small helicopters used for medical evacuations in Korea. Admittedly they are totally different from acurrent quadcopter or drone, but they could do some amazing flying. The difference there being in the rotor, with control of the blade pitch during the rotation. And the small ones used in nam were also amazing when controlled by a few crazy maniacs. (Their definition, not mine.) And none of the mechanical information is secret any more, so you can study that and learn.

 

Learning by doing is not the most efficient way to learn a lot of things, and it can be a very poor choice for the activities that can have nasty consequences for a wrong move. Learning by doing is fine for chess and video games, not so good for flying or even skiing, and certainly wrong for motorcycle driving.
For building a flying machine, learning by studying can save huge amounts of time and resources.

 

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