top of page

EXPERIMENT 1

The Pixhawk

Pixhawk is an independent open-hardware project that aims to provide the for readily-available, high-quality and low-cost autopilot hardware designs for the academic, hobby and developer communities.

The Pixhawk along with the specific electronic parts that would be connected to it.

The Pixhawk along with the specific servos that would be connected to their respective channels on the Pixhawk.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Safety Switch – it is used to enable or disable the outputs to motors and servos

 

LED MEANING

  • Constant Blinking – system is initializing

  • Intermittent Blinking – system is ready and press the safety switch to enable the output of the motors available

  • Solid – safety switch has been pressed and the motors and servos can move once the vehicle is armed

 

Buzzer – which is also known as the tone alarm, is used to play different sounds which include the Arming buzz and the Lost Copter Alarm

 

GPS Module – The Global Positioning System is a satellite navigation which uses a radio receiver to gather the signals from satellites and use that information to determine the speed, position, and time.

 

Telemetry – a support sharing information with a ground station (transmitter) which is a two-way data stream that sends data about the flight to a ground station and sends command to the autopilot

 

Power Module – it is used to power the flight controller and monitors the voltage and current of the battery and triggers a return-to-launch when the voltage becomes low or the total power consumed during the flight approaches the battery’s capacity

 

I2C Splitter – I2C splitter is used to expand the Pixhawk’s I2C port.

 

RGB Module – Increases the USB port for easy links from external USB cable and extends the exterior RGB LED display of the Pixhawk

 

Air speed sensor – used in barometric calculations and airspeed reading

 

Radio Receiver –  receives the commands from the Radio Transmitter and interprets the signal using the flight controller where the commands are converted to specific actions that controls the UAV.

 

Electronic Speed Controller –  are responsible for spinning the motors at the speed requested by the autopilot. Most ESCs need to be calibrated so that they know the minimum and maximum PWM values that the flight controller will send.

 

Servo motors – Connected to the Pixhawk which control the movement of the ailerons, elevator, and rudder. 

bottom of page