Drone to Lift 5 lbs

• Mohammed Almughalles
• Brett Driscoll
• Mohammed El Kadi
• Kenjo Pallarca
• Sam Zeng

Advisor: Michael Brown, PhD

Sponsor: Michael Brown, PhD

Nowadays, drone technology has been improving rapidly from the benefit of different sectors. Defense, transport, health and other industries already took advantage of this highly safe and low-cost technology. In this project, the goal is to design and fabricate a remotely controlled drone with a base no larger than 12 square inches, and capable of lifting a 5-pound weight that can fly 20 ft. Knowing the three flight maneuvers as pitch, roll, and yaw, the fabricated drone must demonstrate at least two of the three maneuvers. The design process started by team members’ brainstorming, then organization of the thoughts into the technical diagram, as learned during Senior Design I lectures. The 5-pound weight will be lifted by the fabricated drone, which requires the careful design and balance between the drone frame blueprint and motor selection. Many frame designs were created in SolidWorks and tested via ANSYS in order to find the design that could best support the desired weight. The frame is fabricated out of an acrylic sheet using a laser cutter. A flight controller (FC) and an electronic speed controller (ESC) will be used to control the different drone flight maneuvers and receive commands via a transmitter and receiver. This project is sponsored by UIC Senior Design — University of Illinois at Chicago. The design process was done with respect to all criteria defined for this project, with a budget goal of $250.

See supporting documentation in the team’s Box drive.