Autonomous ArduCopter configuration

ArduCopter
1

Hi,

I needed some guidance on building my own arducopter with below requirements -

  1. Drone should be able to carry 2.5-3 Kgs.
  2. Budget - 500 USD.
  3. Autonomous flight to a user selected location(latitude, longitude).
  4. Estimated time in making-testing the drone - 1 month.
  5. Should be programmable.(Any language or platform is fine)

I am newbie and from my initial research I came up with the following configuration.

  1. Controller Board for Drone - Pixahawk or Qualcomm Snapdragon Flight.
  2. MAVProxy as my GCS.
  3. Python Drone-kit to automate the whole process.(Thye have a goto function)

Regarding the chassis and body of the drone I have no idea. Please suggest some pointers on how to build and if possible any tutorials present with connections to controller board.

Please suggest any improvments in the configuration which I found from initial searching.
The Ready to fly drones are expensive thus out of my budget. If you have any Ready to fly drones which can fulfill my requirements. Please suggest so.

Thanks for the suggestions and responses.

Thanks,
Kaustubh

2

A few questions.

What is the terrain ? Urban or rural ? Mountainous or flat ?

What range do you require ?

What will it be carrying ? Fragile ? Perishable ?

Personally I think you have the budget for the motors for a heavy lift copter and not much more.Depending on the terrain you may even be short of that.You may be looking at a plane depending on range.

A Pixhawk can do the automatic flying using Mission Planner no problem.

http://ardupilot.org/copter/index.html

http://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/common-mission-planning.html

3

A payload of 2.5/3kg wlll require an octocopter and motors for at least 18" propellers, for any sort of meaningful flight time Or a quad with larger propellers. As Jagger alludes to a total budget of $500 won’t work for what you’d like to do.

Since you are new to this building a small quad first,.capable of carrying a small payload (<.5kg, say), is the best way to go before you attempt building a larger one. This would also be a good machine to use as a test platform for programming, if the built in autonomous capabilities of Ardupilot are not enough.

Would also shy away from Snapdragon Flight as a first foray, as it is not as “standard” and wideily used as Pixhawk and its use will require some advanced expertise. It’s also more expensive ($800) than your entire budget if I am remember correctly, and prices haven’t changed,

4

Thanks for the input Jagger and Olivier B. I will start by building a Quadcopter.
Will come back here if faced any issue. :slight_smile:

Thanks,
Kaustubh