Aircraft Designs

Below chart shows the various frame types we’ll look at in the following

sections.

Notice the direction that each prop rotates compared to its neighbor.

Tricopter

The tricopter is the only common multirotor with an odd number of propellers. It achieves yaw by mounting one of the three motor/prop combinations (usually the rear one) on an axle that permits angled thrust. It has a total of three propellers

Quadcopter

The quadcopter offers the simplest mechanical design with the fewest amount of required components and is currently the most common design. It has a total of four propellers.

Hexacopter

Another very popular design is the hexacopter, due to its increased ability to carry a payload while still remaining fairly agile. It features six propellers; you may also hear this design called a “flat six.”

Octocopter

The octocopter architecture is frequently utilised for aircraft that require a larger payload and redundancy. Because to the fact that it has eight propellers, an octocopter may continue to fly if any of its engines or propellers fail. The remaining seven will safely keep the aircraft in the air. This pattern is also known as a "flat eight."

Y6

The first of our “coaxial” aircraft, the Y6 features six motors and propellers installed on an airframe with three arms. This is accomplished by stacking motors and props on the top and bottom of each arm with each spinning in the opposite direction from the other. You have probably seen coaxial designs on common store-bought RC helicopters. This design type is inherently more stable but 20%–25% less efficient than a traditional “flat” design.

X8

Another popular coaxial design is the X8. The frame itself looks almost identical to a quadcopter, with the main difference being that each arm now has two motors and props for a total of eight.

Materials

Several types of materials are used to construct the modern drone. Carbon fibre, fibreglass, and a variety of plastics or metals are some of the most popular possibilities. Like with most aspects of this activity, you must always strike a balance depending on the qualities that are most important to you. There is an old adage in this hobby that states, "You can have any two of cheap, strong, or lightweight." Although carbon fibre has a very high weight-to-strength ratio, it can be highly costly to work with. For this reason, many individuals begin by creating their ideas from wood or even acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic that has been 3D-printed. It is mostly constructed of G-10 fibreglass (see Figure below). We believe this material strikes a good mix between weight, durability, and affordability.

G-10 fiberglass frames being cut on a CNC machine.

Building the Little Dipper Airframe

The Little Dipper is a collapsible and tiny quadcopter. Its airframe consists of two subframes that serve to separate motor vibrations from the flight and imaging sensors. These are known as the clean and filthy frames. The filthy frame is the bottom subframe, which holds all of the movable components, including the motors and propellers. The frame lies atop the flight and communication electronics and contains them altogether. Below figure depicts a photographic diagram that can be used to identify the flat frame elements as they are arranged. Separate them into the two subframe construction sections. A and B comprise the dirty frame (A is at the bottom and B is at the top), while C denotes the four booms that will house our motors and propellers. The clean frame is comprised of parts D, E, and F: D identifies the bottom clean frame plate, whereas E identifies the top clean frame plate. F represents the camera plate, which rests atop the rubber isolation balls (more on that soon).

You should have all of these parts in your frame kit.

QAV250 with 5X3 carbon fiber props.