0 Appreciate Project

An Advanced ESP32 Mini Drone

What is our vision for this project?

In the short-term we would like to have a functional hardware and software. In the lang-term we would like to breng this new hardware into the community to let people have more choices. We are just a group of friends who are using our free time to working on this project.

Who are the targeted audience?

This project is for people who want a customizable hardware for their drones. And it is also for beginners who want a ready to flight mini drones.

What is our project about?

This project is to build a mini drone with ESP32S3 microcontroller. For this drone we need at least a 6DOF motion sensor. The protocol we have chosen for the communication between MCU and sensors are I2C. Because it is a relative simple protocol to design and implement. It has an USB2.0 Type C port for programming and charging. The excepted cost for assembly one unit is about $50.

ESP32S3 MCU: Dual-core Xtensa® LX7, running up to 240 MHz.

AI functionality: built-in vector instructions that speed up neural network computing and signal processing tasks for image recognition.

Wireless: 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5 (LE) with mesh support and long-range capabilities.

Memory: 512 KB internal SRAM; supports high-speed octal SPI for large external PSRAM and Flash.

I/O expansion: 45 programmable GPIOs, supporting peripherals like I2C interfaces, and DVP camera interfaces.

The motion sensor we have chosen is BNO055. It is an intelligent 9-axis Absolute Orientation Sensor manufactured by Bosch Sensortec. It is a System in Package (SiP) that integrates a triaxial accelerometer, a triaxial gyroscope, a triaxial geomagnetic sensor, and a 32-bit ARM Cortex-M0 microcontroller running Bosch Sensortec’s sensor fusion software directly on the chip. In addition we have a pressure sensor which is responsible to read the altitude of this drone.

Why did we decide to make it?

We have studied many existing mini drone projects. Those are good, but we are going to do something different. The original project of this mini drone is using an old version of ESP32 and it has less sensors onboard. Old ESP32 is less powerful than ESP32S3, therefore I would like to upgrade this to the latest version.

What is new in this project?

This PCB is the frame of the mini drone. It has 10DOF sensors onboard (BNO055 and BMP280). we would like to using wifi for the remote connection. The firmware will be written with popular Arduino IDE or MicroPython. The source code of the PCB and the firmware will be made public on GitHub and PCBWay project sharing website.

What do we going to offer?

We are going to promote your brand and services in our project. Let me know if you have any other ideas that we can do for you. We would be honored to collaborate with PCBWay in the development of project, and we are sure that this kind of partnership is what will help us reach new heights with our project.

More details and resources

How will be the software supported?

Software support is free but limited in what we can offer.

Where is the source code?

GitHub: https://github.com/sPyOpenSource/drone

What is the financial planning?

We are paying with our budget and sponsorships.

What is the planning of the project?

It'll take two years to finish this project.

Where is the Gerber files?

PCBWay: https://www.pcbway.com/project/shareproject/ESP32_Drone_dc3927b2.html

Where is the PCB source files for KiCad?