FPV Drones

What is FPV?

• FPV stands for First Person View.
• By streaming real-time video from the camera on the drone, you are flying like a bird! It’s like you are sitting in the cockpit of the aircraft while controlling it, but your feet are actually firmly on the ground.
• These drones tend to be “full control”, with the gyroscope on the flight controller only helping keep the drone’s current angular position, rather than keep the drone stationary in space like a “dji mavic” might.
  • This allows for flying very fast at extreme angles. Alot of FPV drones can reach 100+km/h!
• People fly FPV for various reasons the three main being:
  • Acrobatic flying
  • Racing
  • Cinematography

Acrobatic Flying

• This is exactly what it sounds like, basically flying for fun
• This community of people will come up with impressive tricks and maneuvers they can get their little speedy drone to preform, strap a GoPro onto it and hit record.
  • It’s very impressive and cool to watch
  • Link to one of my Favourite freestyle videos (opens in a new tab)

Racing

• There is entire leagues where people compete to see who is the fastest
  • The most popular of them being:
    • MultiGP (opens in a new tab), a global competition made pilots
    • DRL (opens in a new tab), a televised competition
• They can go FAST. (opens in a new tab)

Cinematography

• Another place where these drones are used is media
• An FPV drone offers a cool and fast-paced perspective.
  • Being used in a skiing video (opens in a new tab)
  • Being used in a Porsche ad (opens in a new tab)
• Often a GoPro isn't enough for these types of FPV drones, so bigger cameras are required, needing more bigger motors, speed controllers and sometimes advanced digital video transmission system as well, all offering new technical challenges.

My FPV Drones

• I’ve been building and flying FPV drones for a couple years now.
• Here is my most recent one:

The parts

• This drone is made up of a couple parts
• The AIO
  • Foxeer Reaper AIO V2
  • Unlike most FPV builds, the flight controller and speed controllers are all on this one board (all in one), making the assembly and durability of this build way better.
  • The flight controller runs betaflight (opens in a new tab) firmware, which handles the PID loops, controls and on-screen display.
• The Camera and VTX
  • This build uses analog video, which transfers video to the video feed goggles over a 5.8ghz radio connection.
  • The camera is a Caddx Ratel 2, a camera good for lowlight
  • The VTX (Video Transmitter) is the RUSH Tank Solo, which is ~1.6W powerful.
• The R/C connection
  • The system being used is TBS Crossfire, with its nano receiver
    • it is a true and tested 900mhz system
• Motors and Propellers
  • The motors are FPV Cycle 21mm Motors
  • The propellers are Gemfan 3520
    • The “35” stands for 3.5”, which is the diameter of the propeller
    • The “20” stands for the pitch which is 2”.
• The frame
  • The frame is the AOS 3.5
    • This carbon fibre frame is designed for 3.5 inch propellers, and features really cool looking arms which have good resonant properties
• Other
  • Not present in the picture above, but I have also recently designed and 3D printed some more parts:
    • Guards for ends of the arms to prevent splitting in crashes
    • An antenna holder to get a better angle
    • A mount for my new Caddx Peanut (opens in a new tab)
      • An alternative to a GoPro since this drone is too small to carry a full-sized action camera.

Video