Sunday, 6 March 2016

The quadcopter / multirotor dictionary

After my last post "Are quadcopters / multirotors drones?", I thought it might be beneficial to people new to the hobby to have a dictionary. There's a lot of alien words for someone new to the area, I know cause that's exactly what I was thinking a few months ago.
So, here's a few to start off, but I will continue updating this list everyday. Contact me or leave a comment if you can think of some essential extras to add.

Accelerometer - Sensor able to detect acceleration in a certain direction.

Autonomy - The ability to operate without human input.

Barometer - Sensor to detect altitude through sensing air pressure

Brushless Motors - Low friction motors to produce motion from electrical energy.

Control Surface - Flaps, rudder, aileron etc. Surfaces that control aircraft motion through interaction with air.

Drone - A autonomous or semi-autonomous aerial vehicle. (For the purposes of this blog, drone only refers to recreational drones)

ESCs - Electronic speed controllers. Receives signal from flight controller and produces appropriate patterns of power for spinning a brushless motor in response.

Flight Controller - The 'brain' of the multirotor. Receives input from receiver and on board sensors. Produces output to ESCs to control the motors.

FPV - First person view. Normally when a camera is mounted to the aircraft to give the pilot a view as if flying onboard the vehicle.

Frame - The chassis to which all other components are mounted. Forms the shape of the craft and can affect flight characteristics. Strength and rigidity are important, so normally made from fibreglass or carbon fibre though some hard plastics or light metals can be used.

GPS - Global positioning system. Uses satellites to triangulate exact position, within three-dimensions, on Earth.

Gyro - Sensor able to detect which way is up and down.

LiPo - Lithium polymer battery. High power batteries that must be treated with respect.

Power Distribution Board - Non-essential but highly useful component that distributes power to ESCs and other on board systems such as flight controller, FPV system, LEDs etc. Can often contain a voltage regulator circuit if different voltages are required for different components.

Props - Propellors used to create lift. Defined by their diameter and pitch.

Receiver - Receives signal from transmitter and sends signal to flight controller.

RC - Radio controlled.

Rx/Tx - Short for Receiver/Transmitter.

Transmitter - Receives input from person and sends signal to receiver on board the aircraft.

VTx/VRx - Short for video transmitter/video receiver.

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