Overview:
The design goal is to control a drone that has a large power supply input to increase the overall RPM of the motors to make it move more quickly.
Description:
This project uses an ESP32 microcontroller to control 4 motors based on sensing data from a BMP388 and MPU 6050 and uses wifi to communicate drone control commands via Espressif ESP-Drone app API. The motors are controlled via a ESC module that takes in a large power input of 14.8V battery that is charged via a 5V to 24V boost converter along with a high power charging IC
Features:
ESP32 WROOM microcontroller compatibility with wifi connection and Espressif Drone App API
4 Coreless Motors
BMP388 and MPU 6050 sensors
5V to 24V boost converter
24V Charging IC for 14.8V Lipo battery
USB to UART Bridge via CP2102 Bridge
Progress: General idea works, but minor fixes for next version of the drone controller will include switching the TX and RX lines (since the current is TX to TX and RX to RX) and switching to using an ADC pin on the ESP32 to detect the charge of the battery rather than using an IC for that.
Progress: I used the BMP388 and MPU6050 mainly to be able to have a better control system for the drone so it can fly more smoothly. The connections here are as intended and I had no issues with them, in a future design I will likely add more sensors to make the drone have more fun features
Progress: A lot of changes need to be made here, in the next version I am going to completely switch out the idea of connecting everything via these non standard connectors and will replace the battery connector to something more common such as XT60 plug and for the connections to the motors I will need something also more universal to make the connections easier. I will also add ESCs to the actual drone controller, originally I was going to use a module, but the datasheet for the dimensions was very hard to measure making it more difficult to integrate into the design
Progress: The general 5v step down to 3.3v worked exactly as it should which is great. The other step down for the battery I could not test so I am not sure if it worked or not, but it is how the datasheet described it, so I would assume it would be fine to use like normal
Progress: I could also not really test this battery charging circuit since there was an unintentional short to ground and the connectors were not to the spec meaning I am going to change the connector to a XT60. From the datasheet I was using there should be no issue with this charging schematic and how I implemented it, so the only changes would be for the other schematics
Progress: Unfortunately I accidentally shorted the 5V input to ground so I could not test the PCB version of the boost converter, but I did breadboard test it and got around 20V AC from 5V input with a slightly different inductor, so its very likely that this simple boost converter does work. The only change I would make is adding a full bridge rectifier to smooth the AC into a DC voltage that I can use on the coreless motors to prevent any high voltage feedback spikes that might damage the motors, but the AC voltage should work regardless since I plan to add voltage protections to my ESCs once I add those.
This is a 4 layer layout, all connections worked out correctly, the only thing I would change for layout would be to make it more drone shaped and to try to condense everything into a smaller area
Prototyping Inspiration: Boost Converter Breadboard, ESPRESSIF Systems Drone PCB