Development of a Helical and Pigtail-Based Range Extension System for Campus Surveilance Quadcopter

Abstract

A Quadcoptercommonly known as a droneis a type of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that islifted and propelled by four (4) rotors. They usually come with a control pad and LCD screen receiver that receives videos and photographs from the quadcopter while aloft. The major problem faced by UAVs is the communication range limitation between the drone and its ground control station. Generally, the longer the range the lager the UAV coverage and in turn, the more productive. In this work a range extender system was constructed and used to extend the communication and control range of a campus surveillance drone. To achieve this, the quadcopter was coupled and many field trials were conducted for the purpose of understanding its flight mechanism and to empirically measure its range. However the average communications range between the quadcopter and its controlpad was 108 meters. In order to increase this range, range extender system was constructed. It consists of a pigtail antenna for extending the control and video transmission range, and a helical motorized antenna for extension of the flight range. Flight trails and empirical measurements at the Federal University of Technology Minna campus showed that the communication range of the UAV was extended by 200 meters.