Dronekenstein: Energy Efficient Drone

The goal of this project is to design and create an in-door blimp that, in addition to improved safety features, address the issue of short flight time of traditional quadcopter design. This project’s drone does not require the constant lift provided by motors, instead relying on the buoyant forces of a helium balloon. As such, this project’s drone will have significantly longer navigation time. Additionally, using traditional quadcopter drones involve certain risks such as being hit by propellers driven by high rpm motors or being struck by an out-of-control quadcopter. To accomplish this goal without sacrificing the functionality of a drone, this team first chose the lightest necessary electronics available and the most efficient design for payload in order to reduce the total amount of weight needed to lift and the size of the balloon. Once the components were decided, the team was able to move on to securing funding and the purchasing of parts through the school. After that members could finally move on to assembling and programming the electrical hardware for this project.  In the end, the team members managed to create a prototype base design that they can use to build off for next quarter in order to implement much more advanced features such as auto navigation and object recognition.