With the appearance of the STEVAL-FCU001V2 evaluation board, STMicroelectronics entered the drone market. The STEVAL-DRONE02 provides the companion hardware kit intended to make taking flight for the first time more manageable.

While fascinating, drone aerodynamics is a science of its own. With this kit, hardware development can be done in parallel to work on control systems, leading to a significantly faster development process.

High-quality components, ready to fly

Purchasing the STEVAL-DRONE02 kit provides all the mechanical components required for first-flight experiments. In particular, a PVC-based frame is ready to take the flight controller based on the STEVAL-FCU001V2 platform. In addition, STMicroelectronics includes four BLDC motors to provide flight traction. Finally, the matching propellers are also provided along with guards in the frame—eventual drone collisions, often caused by problems with the flight control, will not affect aircraft rigidity.

As for power, STMicroelectronics provides a lithium-polymer battery with a total capacity of 600 mAh. Its maximum discharge current of thirty times the nominal capacity means that short-term burst power is available - energy for challenging or mildly acrobatic flight maneuvers. Finally, a wide array of cables, screws other spare parts ensure that assembly is simple.

STMicroelectronics IP for flight control

SKU STSW-FCU001 (found at https://www.st.com/en/embedded-software/stsw-fcu001.html?ecmp=tt9470_gl_link_feb2019&rt=um&id=UM3117) provides a purely software-based package intended to handle drone flight control law.

In particular, the component integrates itself into the rest of the STM ecosystem, which means that interacting with all kinds of hardware (such as environmental sensors) can be done using the familiar programming interfaces well-known from classic, stationary STM32 applications. Finally, the ST BLE Drone App, available for iOS and Android, provides a conveniently usable remote-control application intended for first-flight tests. It can also enable quick assurance that the motor control stack is ready for takeoff.

The above-mentioned STMicroelectronics software can be run on a wide variety of controllers. ST’s recommended target platform is the STM32F401 - its ARM Cortex-based core provides enough compute performance for sensor fusion and flight control law.

The evaluation board provides a second BlueNRG-M0 microcontroller intended to handle the Bluetooth interface to the control application. For environmental sensing and navigation, STMicroelectronics provides the following sensors as part of the drone flight controller:

  • LSM6DSR – iNEMO inertial module: 3D accelerometer and 3D gyroscope
  • LPS22HH – High-performance MEMS nano pressure sensor: 260-1260 hPa absolute digital output barometer

Finally, the motor drivers installed provide room for growth. This means that the control board can also be used to power larger drones.

Conclusion

Drone design often occurs under great time pressure. If a drone prototype is needed for software verification, the STEVAL-DRONE02 - STEVAL-FCU001V2 combination ensures that the UAV is ready to take flight at a moment's notice.