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Electronics => Electronics => Topic started by: p4trick on October 23, 2013, 02:31:42 PM

Title: Quadcopter based on a smartphone motherboard
Post by: p4trick on October 23, 2013, 02:31:42 PM
 Hi guys, Im new to his forum.
I'm trying to build a quadcopter using a smartphone motherboard  ;D because It already has a GPS, compass, proximity sensor, accelerometer and a camera. I wanted to control 4 brushless motors using a usb board connected to the phone's usb port via otg, I could compile a custom kernel adding the required drivers, the only problem is that I can't find a usb board that would controll 4 brushless motors and I'm not very good with electronics so I don't think I would be able to make one on my own unless it was really easy  ::)
Does anybody have a solution ??
Thanx for your help  :D
Title: Re: Quadcopter based on a smartphone motherboard
Post by: jwatte on October 23, 2013, 09:51:40 PM
I would suggest getting four ESCs for the motor control, and then generate control signals from a simple USB microcontroller, like the Arduino Nano or similar.
You can use the Servo Arduino library to generate the control signals.

Title: Re: Quadcopter based on a smartphone motherboard
Post by: vipulan12 on October 25, 2013, 04:35:17 PM
You would also need a gyro, how do you intend on using the GPS and the other components?How are you hooking this up?
Title: Re: Quadcopter based on a smartphone motherboard
Post by: p4trick on October 30, 2013, 03:38:25 PM
You would also need a gyro, how do you intend on using the GPS and the other components?How are you hooking this up?
Well, I wanted to write a program that would control it  so it can fly by it self in case it looses signal or I might want it fly over an area, take some pictures and come back. I could use the GPU for image processing. The GPS and the other sensors will be very useful, I will need the GPS to know where the quadcopter is. The motors are going to be controlled by an external board connected through the USB port. I could also connect a gyro through USB. I just need to figure out how to control the motors, I know a bit of java and c++ so I should be able to do all the programming.  ;)
Title: Re: Quadcopter based on a smartphone motherboard
Post by: p4trick on October 30, 2013, 03:48:23 PM
I would suggest getting four ESCs for the motor control, and then generate control signals from a simple USB microcontroller, like the Arduino Nano or similar.
You can use the Servo Arduino library to generate the control signals.
Good idea  ;D
I'll research it and I'll let you know about the progress  ;)
Title: Re: Quadcopter based on a smartphone motherboard
Post by: p4trick on October 31, 2013, 03:32:36 AM
I would suggest getting four ESCs for the motor control, and then generate control signals from a simple USB microcontroller, like the Arduino Nano or similar.
You can use the Servo Arduino library to generate the control signals.
But would i be able to control an Arduino through USB ?
Title: Re: Quadcopter based on a smartphone motherboard
Post by: jwatte on October 31, 2013, 10:55:01 AM
Yes, the Arduino plugs into the USB port and looks like a USB serial device. You can read/write the serial port on the Arduino side, and write code on the host side to talk to the serial port.

Another option, if your host is Android, is to use the "ioio" boards for Android, which are roughly "arduino for android with pre-built libraries" and may make things slightly easier.