Development of Android phone based controller for RC helicopter

Abstract

The objective of this project is to develop a Smartphone based remote control system to control as well as to include additional features for off-shelf Radio Controlled (RC) Helicopter.

Controlling the RC helicopter using the provided controller that comes with the unit may not be the most convenient as it has limitations such as the bulkiness of the controller and the lack of more user friendly interface.

With these limitations, people had considered other alternatives. One common approach is to use a Laptop with Microcontroller and wireless network to control these RC devices. However controlling these devices using Laptop is not really intuitive due to its size and lack of motion-control features.

With the introduction of Smartphone and its ubiquitousness in our daily life, many application developers are moving their products onto Smartphone based system such that these applications can be used on the move. On top of that, latest smartphones have a lot of built-in features such as graphic based interface with intuitive motion-control ability, Bluetooth and Wireless communication link, and it is much more portable than a Laptop. Therefore more useful features and functions can be added to the existing capabilities of the devices.

In this project, the RC helicopter remote control system developed consist of an Android smartphone based application together with a hardware unit using Bluetooth module, a Microcontroller and digital potentiometers. On top of that, the system designed can be used without modification to the existing circuitries of the controller that comes with the unit and hence would allow it to be used with other RC devices.