QUADCOPTER WITH GESTURE CONTROL

CHANDHANN KUMAR RAMCHURN | BSc Mechatronics Engineering | Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering
Supervisor : Dr Kevin Lee
Overview
A quadcopter is device fitted with four motors that are Raspberry Pi
controlled individually, using varying voltages, in terms of
speed and direction through a flight control board. This flight Microcontroller
control board receives signals from a remote control in order Overview
to move in the 6 degrees of freedom (DOF). The remote
control is a box fitted with two joysticks and buttons but can A Raspberry Pi (RPi) is a microcomputer that has the ability to
be hard to master. carry out image processing using a dedicated Pi Camera. It
consists of a board that has several General Peripheral Input
By creating a gesture recognition program, the quadcopter Output (GPIO) pins that can be used to vary output voltage from
can simply be controlled using hand gestures. 0 to 3.3V in Pulse-Width Modulation outputs (PWM).

Application PWM Duty Cycle

Quadcopters are normally used for photography; a camera The quadcopter works on a PWM pulse signal that
can be attached onto the quadcopter and flown to position varies the speed of the motor. Since the GPIO Pins can
using gestures. A specific gesture would then allow the user output voltages using PWM, the
to take a picture or to start recording. task of creating a program that
would change the duty cycle of
the PWM output would result in a
Quadcopter Control change in the speed of the motor
and hence displacement.
To control the quadcopter, a transmitter located on the remote control
board sends specific PWM signals that are proportional to the user input,
i.e., moving a joystick up or down, to the receiver on board the Image Processing
quadcopter. The flight controller then distributes the voltage to each Open CV
motor accordingly and as a result the quadcopter moves. Open CV is a library of programming functions aimed mainly
at real time image processing. It was used with this project as
Voltage/V Position of quad shown below.
0 3.3 V change
0 At Rest
thrust recorded
1.66 50 % Thrust
3.32 100% Thrust

Voltage/V Position of quad

Thrust
0 Rotate Left Roll Convexity Defects
yaw
1.66 Holds Position
3.32 Rotate Right
1. Examine a frame from a live feed of a video. Once the convexity defects are found, based on
Voltage/V Position of quad
By wiring up four GPIO Pins from the RPi into the the number of defects present, a program will
0 Reverse
remote control signal pins, the output voltages carry out a specific task.
pitch
2. Apply a greyscale followed by a blur in order to
1.66 Holds Position
from the GPIO pins can be varied so as to control
better segregate the Region of Interest, the hand.
3.32 Forward
Thrust, Yaw, Pitch and Roll exclusively. For example, using a closed hand with two
3. Extract the largest contour and apply red lines to fingers will result in an increase in voltage for a
Voltage/V Position of quad Once the image processing concludes, it results in a
the extremes to indicate target. specific GPIO pin, in this case, the thrust pin.
0 Strafe Left change in voltage of a GPIO Pin, which would cause
roll
1.66 Holds Position the quadcopter motors to respond accordingly.
3.32 Strafe Right 4. Locate the gaps, or convexity defects, in between
each finger and pinpoint location with prominent
circle.