Introduction

Having 2 Emax Babyhawks with one of them having the body broken beyond a point of repair, it was decided to replace the plastic body with a carbon fiber body/frame of similar size. Once the project was completed there were two quadcopters with identical Flight Controllers, ESCs, Motors, Propellers and cameras. The only difference was the bodies and the spacing of the motors. Because everything else was the same it was elected to see what kind of influence the body had on the performance of the quadcopter.

The test that was decided was to fly each quadcopter about 1.5 meters off the ground in hover to see how much power was required. Three sets of flights were made, two where each quad had the same weight to see how the different body shapes affected the results. And the third set combined the new weight and shape of the carbon fiber body. Below is the top and front views of the quadcopters along with their basic data.

Top View


Front View

Specifications

Test Results

Switching to a carbon fiber body reduced both the weight and power needed to maintain hover even when the weights were matched. For the identical weight test, both quadcopters were set to 69 grams.

Test Procedure

Because of the age of the flight controllers, they did not have telemetry or 'blackbox' data recording to acquire the data directly. To determine the power at hover the following was done.

• The 4 test batteries were charged in parallel to the same final voltage (group voltage was recorded)
• A 3.5 minute hover with each battery was performed approximately 1.5 meters high
• After the last battery, all batteries were hooked up in parallel to the charger and the final group voltage was recorded
• The 4 batteries were charged in parallel to the same starting voltage as before. The total milliamp hour for the group was recorded
• Assuming a linear voltage drop an average voltage was calculated, knowing the voltage, milliamp hour and time of the flight, the power required to hover was calculated

Back to WashintonPilot