Propulsion - Pitt-RAS/iarc7_common GitHub Wiki

The design process for our propulsion system actually starts with everything that's not the propulsion system; what that means is that we design our propulsion system to carry the payload we need instead of selecting sensors that fit within a payload limit set by our propulsion system. The current drone (the one that flew at competition in 2017, known as v1.0) weighs slightly over 5kg. The propulsion system we use is purchased from KDE Direct, and is described further in this blog post. Not mentioned in that blog post is that the props we currently use are 12x6 APC propellers. We have a variety of different sized batteries we can use that provide different flight times and different internal resistances. All of our batteries are 6S1P LiPo batteries. We have several 8Ah battery packs from MultiStar and ChinaHobbyLine that we use, as well as several 5200mAh batteries from Tattu that we use in pairs in parallel. The propulsion system is entirely opto-isolated from the computers and sensors, so the high-voltage transients caused by our motors and ESCs do not effect our sensitive electronics.