Power Distribution Board
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Represented below is the block diagram for a remote control drone slated for competition in DJIs annual RoboMaster tournament. Over the next few months I will be designing and integrating a power distribution system that will allow us to track and manipulate power consumption separate from DJIs standard referee module (purple).
Sub-System
Notes
Chassis
Includes terminal board and all four wheel driver motors. Power monitoring of this system in particular will be essential to rules compliance.
Gimbal
Controls power to development board A (control board with STM32 processor). Will also have to pass power consumption data to this area. Power consumption of the controller itself has been shown to be negligible.
Shoot
Since we are using non-stock motors for this system, we will need to step down 24V supply power to 12V power (current draw is 25A max but 1-5A during typical operation). Furthermore we should minimize current flow through the chassis / gimbal split. Therefore we should split the overall PDB into a main board below the split-ring and a peripheral board above the split ring.
Vision
As per tournament rules there is no specified limit to vision system power consumption. Furthermore systems like the Pi or the Nano usually include some sort of on-board circuit protection. Therefore instrumentation for this system is not a requirement.
Chassis power instrumentation
Shoot system power instrumentation
Aggregate power instrumentation
Ability transmit instrumentation data to (dev board A)
DC-DC, 24 to <17.4V step down for shoot system
Passive current limiting for C620 ESCs (20A)
Active or passive current limiting for the shoot as a whole
Some sort of size constraint
Gimbal system power instrumentation
Vision system power instrumentation
Reintegrate defunct supercapacitor project from earlier in the year
Probe points for circuit debugging.
Not unecessarily large or expensive.
See