Flying Raspberry Pi

After a crash landing on a motor test from about 6m in the air, the frame broke prompting a redesign using sturdier materials. Now, the frame is reinforced with a carbon fibre skeleton with any custom parts mounted on top. The propellers were also flipped to push air rather than pull since mobility was less of a concern than lift force for this design. Because of the new frame, the electronics needed to be relocated and custom parts needed to be designed to hold parts that otherwise wouldn't fit on the new frame. The image to the left is the frame as it is now and will be updated when custom parts are finished

This was a minor improvement over Prototype 3. This version uses the exact same body that housed the flight controller and battery. The changes made were only to the motor arms, taking advantage of the modularity introduced in the previous version. The previous motor arms did not have enough material around the connectors to the body and would start twisting and vibrating at high motor speeds preventing stable flight. The new version strengthened these connectors and reduced vibrations to an imperceptible amount.

This is the first version with a new design unrestrained by the physical design of Yokai. This design focused on modularity and weight reduction from Prototype 2. Motors and Propellers were upgraded to larger sizes. Motor arms were detachable to allow them to be replaced for upgrades or repairs. Unneeded volume was removed to reduce weight. Improvements were made to the GPS mount, following the guidelines by Navio2 for how to place the GPS module. Images of the full drone are of Prototype 4 as full models of Prototype 3 are not available, but most of the parts are the same on both models. The only difference are the motor arms where the second image shows Prototype 3's on the left and Prototype 4's on the right.

This version was designed with protection of the flight controller in mind. In the previous version, the flight controller was exposed to the outside and was potentially vulnerable to physical damage when crashing. This version introduced a case that enclosed the entirety of the flight controller to ensure that the vibration dampeners could prevent the flight controller from striking anything when crashing. Legs were also added to each corner to lift the drone from the ground when landed.

This version was created directly after testing Prototype 0 and major improvements to rigidity were made. The previous version would flex wildly when the motors started and could not maintain stability. This version was designed such that stronger connectors prevented flexing between parts and thicker bases prevented individual parts from bending. The issue with this prototype however was the exposed flight controller from the top and unreliable GPS readings from the GPS module sitting directly in the other electronics and especially close to the RF noisy ESC.

This is the oldest version, and my first attempt at 3D printing my own designs. This design was created in 4 quadrants due to the limitations of my 3D printer having not enough space to print the entire drone in one pass. There are no physical models available anymore as it needed to be destroyed to remove certain parts for use in later versions of the drone and only one image of it remains in the last picture. Many lessons were learnt from this prototype due to the many issues that arose when using it. After this version, all subsequent models avoided thin parts to prevent flexing and better connectors to ensure adjacent parts would be firmly attached.