Quad Copter with Wireless Camera

The military use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has grown because of their ability to operate in dangerous locations while keeping their human operators at a safe distance. The larger UAVs also provide a reliable long duration, cost effective, platform for reconnaissance as well as weapons. They have grown to become an indispensable tool for the military. The question we posed for our project was whether small UAVs also had utility in military and commercial/industrial applications. We postulated that smaller UAVs can serve more tactical operations such as searching a village or a building for enemy positions. Smaller UAVs, on the order of a couple feet to a meter in size, should be able to handle military tactical operations as well as the emerging commercial and industrial applications and our project is attempting to validate this assumption. To validate this assumption, my team considered many different UAV designs before we settled on creating a Quad copter. The payload of our Quad copter design includes a camera and telemetry that will allow us to watch live video from the Quad copter on a laptop that is located up to 2 miles away. We are presently in the final stages of building the Quad copter but we still improving our design to allow us to have longer flight times and better maneuverability. We are currently experimenting with new software so that we will not have to control the Quad copter with an RC controller but will instead operate by sending commands from a remote laptop. Our project has verified that it is possible to build a small-scale Quad copter that could be used for both military and commercial use. Our most significant problems to date have been an ambitious development schedule coupled with very limited funds. These constraints have forced compromise in components selected and methods used for prototype development.