Shehryar Niazi

Quad-copter Project Progress Report. This week I spent a lot of time coming up with the new design of the quad-copter. I had been showing up at school at 10am and stayed till 8pm. I wanted to come up with a design that is light but sturdy at the same time. The rule of thumb for designing and ordering motors is that the thrust force should be as much as twice the weight. Have the force is going to be used to just lift it at keep it in a stationary position in the air and the excess would make it accelerate up overcoming gravity and to be handled properly.

Design: Storage Box I tried various designs and this is the final design that I came up with. I kept it in mind throughout that the design should be easy to machine. As I’ve seen that the old design was incredibly tough to assemble. There were way too many parts. Simpler design always has less room for failure thus I tried to have least parts as possible.

Figure 1: 3ft x 3ft storage box

Shehryar Niazi

Figure 1 shows the storage box that I designed for the quad copter. It has spacing on four sides at the top that are used as slots for the top beams for the propellers. They’re made of exact dimensions as the beams so the fit snug. Whenever a quad copter is being designed main focus is kept on vibration levels and with my design the vibration level has aimed to be as less as possible. Holes have been made at the bottom to reduce the weight. Thin sheets of aluminum will be used to make this box. Machining it is really easy as the sheet can be easily cut in the plasma cutter provided in our school’s shop and all four of the sheets are going to be the same. They can be either bolted or welded together. The bottom plate can also be easily cut in the plasma cutter. Plasma cutter in our shop lacks precision for small pieces around 1” x 1” big but works really well for bigger plates like the ones used in the storage box. The openings in the wall of the box can be closed by thin transparent plastic sheets in order to make sure that the smaller loads don’t fall out or it can either be taped to ensure safety. Beams: The beams for holding the propellers and the electronic components are hollow in order to reduce the weight. Holes have been drilled in order to mount the plates on there well. The hollow beams can also have wires running through them. Hole has been made where the two beams meet through which wires can be run all the way to the propellers. There won’t be any wires showing with this design.

Figure 2: Top beams to hold the electronic mounting plate and the propellers

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Clamps I designed clamps to make sure that the beams hold tightly close to the box. The clamps can be seen in figure 2 below. The clamps slip on to the beam and the box and are bolted to make sure that they don’t move at all. Bolts used are big as it had to be made sure that the storage box was secure. I wanted to over engineer the design to make sure that chances of failure are minimal.

Figure 3: Clamp holding beams and the storage box

Electronics and Motor Mounting Plates Two of the plates as seen in figure 4 will be machined. These holes will have to be drilled. A really thin plate can be used as the beams underneath the plate will provide support too. The two sheets will be bolted together using long bolts and spacing will be provided using nuts. There will be 5”x 24” x 24” space between the two plates which will be sufficient for all the electronics to fit in. The assembled plates can be seen in figure 5. The hole in the center of the plate will allow the wires to pass through. There is a hole in the top plate for the wires too because if desired a camera or a light can be mounted on top of the quad.

Figure 4: Electronics and Motor Mounting Plate

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Figure 5: Assembled Mounting Plates – Bolted onto the beams

Landing Gear I came up with two different landing gear designs. The first one was sturdier but was too heavy. The older design can be seen in figure 6. This design was way stronger that the need and thus wasn’t feasible.

Figure 6: First Landing Gear Design – Discarded

The second design that I came up with shown in figure 7 is much lighter and even provides bigger surface area which will reduce the impact while landing. The design was inspired by a ski. The lift in the front is similar to a ski and a thin aluminum plate will be used in order to make this. Both the plates were separated in order to give the quad a lower center of gravity and make it less likely to topple.

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Figure 7: Final Landing Gear Design

The beams holding the plate are hollow aluminum beams. It can’t be seen in the figure and do appear to be really heavy which in reality they won’t be. Final Assembly with Propellers:

Figure 8: Final Assembly

Final assembly of the quad-copter can be seen in figure 8.

Shehryar Niazi

Conclusion: The reason I made a new design is as it is way easier to machine. It has a better balance with a lower center of gravity and is less likely to topple over. Has simpler assembly which makes it less likely of a failure. The design is more thorough and all the details are written in this report. The previous design was vague and not all information was provided. The design is going to be much lighter as the tons of beams used in the older design did make it really heavy.