Book Image

Building Smart Drones with ESP8266 and Arduino

By : Syed Omar Faruk Towaha
Book Image

Building Smart Drones with ESP8266 and Arduino

By: Syed Omar Faruk Towaha

Overview of this book

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.

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Table of Contents (11 chapters)
Preface
Preface
Who this book is for
What this book covers
To get the most out of this book
Get in touch
Disclaimer
Free Chapter
1
Things to Know Before You Build a Drone
Things to Know Before You Build a Drone
Drone
Types of motors used for drones
Radio transmitter and receiver
Battery
Battery adapters/chargers
Connectors
Some modules to make the drone smarter
Summary
2
Assembling Your Drone
Assembling Your Drone
Assembling the frame
Connecting the RC receiver and transmitter
Connecting the battery
Binding transmitter to the receiver
Know the aerodynamics needed for flying a drone
Saving your drone from crashing
Check things before flying
Check the security protocols for flying a drone outside
Summary
3
Preparing Your Drone for Flying
Preparing Your Drone for Flying
What is ESP8266?
Downloading and installing APM Planner or Mission Planner
Configuring the quadcopter
Summary
4
Building a Follow Me Drone
Building a Follow Me Drone
What is a Follow Me drone?
Using a smartphone to enable the Follow Me feature of ArduPilot
Building an Arduino-based Follow Me drone
GPS Tracker using ESP8266
Summary
5
Building a Mission Control Drone
Building a Mission Control Drone
Surveying with a drone
Using drones and delivery man
Some other tweaks with the Flight Plan screen
Summary
6
Building a Drone to Take Selfies and Record Videos
Building a Drone to Take Selfies and Record Videos
Photography drones
Requirements
Assembling the photography drone
Controlling the camera
Flying and taking shots
Controlling the camera gimbal using ESP8266
Summary
7
Building Prototype Drones – Gliding Drones
Building Prototype Drones – Gliding Drones
What is a glider?
How a glider glides
Let's build our own glider drone
Summary
8
Building Prototype Drones – Racing Drones
Building Prototype Drones – Racing Drones
Racing drones
Avoiding obstacles using ESP8266
Summary
9
Maintaining and Troubleshooting Your Drone
Maintaining and Troubleshooting Your Drone
Safety of the drone
Be careful about the battery
Storage of the drone
Carrying a drone
Before and after flight safety
Respect the law and privacy
Troubleshooting your drone
Diagnosing problems using logs
Radio control calibration problem
Summary
10
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Assembling Your Drone

In Chapter 1, Things to Know Before You Build a Drone, we were introduced to all the basic components of a drone. In this chapter, we will assemble our drone and make it ready for the next phase.

We will cover the following topics in this chapter:

  • Assembling the frame
  • Connecting the motor
  • Connecting the ESC
  • Connecting the ArduPilot
  • Configuring the drone with the ArduPilot
  • Aerodynamics needed for flying a drone
  • Knowing security protocols for flying a drone
  • Preventing the drone from crashing

To begin the process of building the quadcopter, we first need to assemble the frame. So, let's begin with our assembling.

Previous Section
End of Section 1
Next Section