3D Printed Drone for indoor temperature Monitoring - Advice Please

[Tak-chi Ho]

Hello!

I've recently started a project which involves designing, manufacturing and programming a 3D Printed Drone (Quadcopter) for use in indoor temperature monitoring.

I plan to begin this project by producing a simple system where a temperature sensor is onboard the quadcopter, and the reading is transmitted to a tablet/android phone. Ideally I would also like it to be controlled using a tablet/android phone.

Since I'm extremely new to the process of designing a Quadcopter I was hoping for some advice on some topics which I'm unsure about...

Flight Controllers for temperature measuring

There is a large variety of Controllers available, but I'm unsure as to which boards have the capacity to add a temperature sensor onto it, and which have the capacity to relay this reading to a tablet?

i.e How do I know if a flight controller is suitable for me? What features should I look for?

Does anyone have any recommendations on which flight controllers might be suitable for this application?

Indoor Positioning

From preliminary research around the topic of indoor positioning, it seems as if accurate indoor positioning is difficult. I'm hoping to eventually be able to produce a drone which can automatically produce 2D or even 3D heat maps of an indoor space, but accurate positioning is required... are there are affordable methods for accurately gauging position in an indoor GPS denied region?

Tablet/Android Control

Can any flight controller be programmed to be controlled using a tablet/android? If not, what is required on a flight controller which allows for this setup to be viable?


Hope my questions aren't too blindly obvious!

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Hoki]

I wish I had a 3d printer. Is it hard to design the stuff on the software? I wanna find someone with a printer that can make me some stuff I have in mind. I'd love like a prop guard type deal but that it's like a wire frame that will totally encase each propeller.

 

[Tak-chi Ho]

I wish I had a 3d printer. Is it hard to design the stuff on the software? I wanna find someone with a printer that can make me some stuff I have in mind. I'd love like a prop guard type deal but that it's like a wire frame that will totally encase each propeller.

I'm personally going to use a 3D printing service at my university, designing the parts isn't too difficult, but I've been using CAD software for a number of years now.

 

[John Doecliff]

Radios and receivers are typically one way communication only. Your radio broadcasts a command and your receiver receives it and sends it to the FC to be executed. That's it. There is a thing called RSSI (received signal strength indication) or something like that. It lets you know how strong your radio signal is at the craft and broadcasts it back to the radio. There is also a thing called OSD (on screen display) that takes flight controller data and sends it back to a separate radio receiver, it piggy backs on the FPV system signal. It would probably be easy to send temperature data back using the OSD system or with other telemetry data that is included with RSSI. My spectrum DX8 radio has a telemetry feature that uses a separate module called a TM1000 that sends data back to the radio. You can get RPM, temp, RSSI, air speed, etc, etc. It would probably be easy to use an OSD system to do this as well. Being indoors presents some problems as to how to get your drone to fly autonomously through rooms and hallways but getting a temp signal out from the craft is probably the least of your worries. A spectrum radio will work with virtually any FC, it uses its own receiver and telemetry module and that's where you would get your temp signal from. I wonder if the prop wash wouldn't effect your temperature reading. A drone is a cool way to do it but wouldn't just having temp sensors throughout the building connected via wifi accomplish the same thing? I know its boring compared to a drone but I'm just sayin.

 

[Tak-chi Ho]

Radios and receivers are typically one way communication only. Your radio broadcasts a command and your receiver receives it and sends it to the FC to be executed. That's it. There is a thing called RSSI (received signal strength indication) or something like that. It lets you know how strong your radio signal is at the craft and broadcasts it back to the radio. There is also a thing called OSD (on screen display) that takes flight controller data and sends it back to a separate radio receiver, it piggy backs on the FPV system signal. It would probably be easy to send temperature data back using the OSD system or with other telemetry data that is included with RSSI. My spectrum DX8 radio has a telemetry feature that uses a separate module called a TM1000 that sends data back to the radio. You can get RPM, temp, RSSI, air speed, etc, etc. It would probably be easy to use an OSD system to do this as well. Being indoors presents some problems as to how to get your drone to fly autonomously through rooms and hallways but getting a temp signal out from the craft is probably the least of your worries. A spectrum radio will work with virtually any FC, it uses its own receiver and telemetry module and that's where you would get your temp signal from. I wonder if the prop wash wouldn't effect your temperature reading. A drone is a cool way to do it but wouldn't just having temp sensors throughout the building connected via wifi accomplish the same thing? I know its boring compared to a drone but I'm just sayin.

Hi John, Thank you very much for your response! The information you have presented will be very helpful for me!

Indeed, another one of my issues will be indoor positioning... ideally this system will eventually become fully autonomous, and be able to produce a 2D or 3D heat map of any indoor environment, but without accurate information of the drones position this is currently out of the question. This issue is why I'm currenly focusing on the basics of producing a quadcopter which can be flown manually and which can transmit a temperature reading to a tablet.

Yes, you are right in saying planting sensors around a room connected by wifi will accomplish the same thing. However, there are many advantages to using a drone, one of which is to eventually produce detailed heat maps which would include regions where there are no temperature sensors present, or for regions that would require temperature sensors to be suspended in the air. Further developments may transform the temperature monitoring drone into a safety drone which would perform surveillance or analyse gas emissions. Plenty of scope for improvement .

 

[FLJim]

Hi Tak-chi Ho. It is an interesting challenge. However, it seems like it would be quite difficult to have a drone autonomously map a 3D space. My first thought was that if a vacuum cleaner robot can map, why not a drone. Then I realized that to map you would have to be able to measure distance, not just obstacles. While there are several ways it could be done (laser mapping for example), I would think the equipment and power to run such gear would get heavy. Before you know it you will have a drone that is ridiculously expensive and large. Perhaps if you had a base station that could 3D map the space, then using some kind of location tracking sensor on the drone it could control the drone and have it fly to the desired areas to take a temp reading.

Sorry, just letting my brain wonder on the topic... Keep us in the loop if you really go after this. Would love to see what you come up with.