Implementation of an Ultralight Autopilot Drone for Service Robotics

According to the International Federation of Robotics any robot that operates autonomously or semi-autonomously to help the human being in his activities (excluding manufacturing) is a service robot. Today the use of drones has grown exponentially for different types of applications, including service robotics. In this thesis, after a brief introduction on the regulation and classification of UAVs, the main sizing criteria of each component of a multirotor will be shown. Starting from the design constraints and a state of the art of the main flight controllers, the hardware and firmware components chosen for the implementation of an autopilot quadcopter under 250 grams will be described. The sizing of the components will be strongly influenced by the weight of each of them and will be flanked by a test on the motor / propeller coupling to evaluate the performance and then choose the most suitable devices for the purpose. Once the Pixracer has been identified as the best flight controller for the project, the PX4 firmware and related software for remote control (Mission Planner and QgraounControl) will be described. Finally, after the assembly phase, the evaluation tests of the performance of the aircraft, the problems encountered and the possible solutions and improvements will be described.