You can find me on twitter @bhutanisanyam1
![](https://sanyambhutani.com/content/images/downloaded_images/QuadCopter-as-The-Flying-Car-Test-Platform--Diary-of-a-Flying-Car-Engineer--1/1-0aqUC4lm2gpfbFlcDnL39w.gif)
This article is aimed at explaining why applying our code to Quadcopters are a good Test Platform for flying Cars.
- The fast pace of drone market is tremendous. DJI is launching safer, advanced and more capable drones every year.
- Drones that were once used by Military have now become really common thanks to photographers.
- Even Nanodrones like the Crazyflie, now come equipped with all the electronics and technology to make them a complete system.
Types of Aircrafts:
- Fixed Wing
![](https://sanyambhutani.com/content/images/downloaded_images/QuadCopter-as-The-Flying-Car-Test-Platform--Diary-of-a-Flying-Car-Engineer--1/1-7p7m4FG94YUdZcRlyQHWjQ.jpeg)
An everyday Boeing passenger plane, a F-22 Fighter jet classify as fixed wing aircrafts. These are highly efficient and are the choice for longer travel distances.
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- Rotary Wing
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Helicopters, Quadrotors are rotary winged Aircrafts.
![](https://sanyambhutani.com/content/images/downloaded_images/QuadCopter-as-The-Flying-Car-Test-Platform--Diary-of-a-Flying-Car-Engineer--1/1-J4CUyEF_LsEIxqQb7ZBZBA.gif)
These have rotating propellers to act as wings and keep the aircraft flying. These are capable of VTOL (Vertical TakeOff and Landing) which makes them a better choice for landing in tight environments where we can’t have long runways in place.
I’ll save some interesting Takeoffs for another post in the series.
Quadcopter
Quadcopter is a rotary winged aircraft, having 4 rotors.
- The Quad or the Quadrotor or Quadcopter has an X-Shaped body and has 4 rotors mounted on every arm.
![](https://sanyambhutani.com/content/images/downloaded_images/QuadCopter-as-The-Flying-Car-Test-Platform--Diary-of-a-Flying-Car-Engineer--1/1-RVI4u9AFK-T2EPKGzjyp9w.gif)
- The adjacent propellers spin in opposite directions and the opposite ones spin in the same direction
- So, 2 Propellers spin clockwise and 2 counter-clockwise. This is in order to preserve the net angular momentum and keep the complete quad from rotating.
Why Quadcopter?
- These are the most commonly available drones.
- The symmetrical body allows us to worry less about Physics while working on Flight plans.
- High Density LiPo Batteries are now commercially accessible, which can be used to power these drones.
- We have high torque Motors that can be mounted on the quad’s enabling them to perform not just stable flight but also some really cool manoeuvres.
Our Testing Platform:
We have taken the Crazyflie 2.0 as our flying car test platform, Udacity has generously offered us a discount on the Bundle. Also the kit will allow us to run our projects from the Flying Car Nanodegree, directly on the Nanodrone.
![](https://sanyambhutani.com/content/images/downloaded_images/QuadCopter-as-The-Flying-Car-Test-Platform--Diary-of-a-Flying-Car-Engineer--1/1-ShoUfiFY0e2UV9UG9IQjuQ.jpeg)
You can find me on twitter @bhutanisanyam1
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