Resources

If you're reading this, you've obviously already found the ECE445 web site. It is extremely important that you familiarize yourself with the website as soon as possible, since all major semester milestones are organized using PACE. Documents are uploaded to your Project Page for grading, meetings are scheduled, and parts are requested. In addition, we use PACE as our general discussion board for the semester and Canvas to manage grades.

Below is a list of important links you'll use all semester:

Other Useful Links

UIUC

Signal Processing

Sensors

GPS

General

Companies

Propeller-less Multi-rotor

Ignacio Aguirre Panadero, Bree Peng, Leo Yamamae

Propeller-less Multi-rotor

Featured Project

Our project explored the every-expanding field of drones. We wanted to solve a problem with the dangers of plastic propellers as well as explore new method of propulsion for drones.

Our design uses a centrifugal fan design inspired by Samm Shepard's "This is NOT a Propeller" video where he created a centrifugal fan for a radio controlled plane. We were able to design a fan that has a peak output of 550g per fan that is safe when crashing and when the impeller inside damaged.

The chassis and fans are made of laser-cut polystyrene and is powered using brushless motors typically used for radio-controlled helicopters.

The drone uses an Arduino DUE with a custom shield and a PCB to control the system via Electronic Speed Controllers. The drone also has a feedback loop that will try to level the drone using a MPU6050.

We were able to prove that this method of drone propulsion is possible and is safer than using hard plastic propellers.

Project Videos