Autopilot Concept Change

After a bad case of stomach bug, I stayed at home today and got working on he UAV both hardware and software. The goal was simple yet daunting: Transfer 3 shields worth of hardware to one protoshield.

Due to the high turnaround of making a custom-made PCB (which I have a fair experience on). I decided to go the perfboard route and make the conceptual design straight on the board. It became quite obvious that a few things could be done to reduce the size of the hardware:

Instead of having the 5V regulator (although it will be added as a bakcup option) power supply could be taken straight from the ESC. I measured a voltage of 5.05V
The need of transistors on each servo channel can be replaced with the switching done in the controller. This can be managed more efficiently.
The sensors are attached on the board using right-angled header pins allowing the sensor boards to stacked upright leaving space for more sensors such as a barometer, and the prize sensor: the GPS.

Having made these drastic changes, it now time to put this concept together.

I will post some pictures once it's done.

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