PCB Design

Rather than purchasing a pre-made one, our team is working on designing our own printed circuit board for the benefit of being able to customize it to our specific needs, especially since our project demands very strict weight and size requirements. In order to do this we are using the program Autodesk Eagle.

To begin our design, we had to compare our battery voltage output versus the input that our rover components call for. The battery we have decided to use is 14.8 V. The link for this battery can be found below as reference for those interested. If you are curious about why we chose each component we did, please wait for our upcoming blog post about it!

https://www.amazon.com/Zeee-Battery-Quadcopter-Airplane-Helicopter/dp/B093DG3W3C/ref=sr_1_6?crid=3BTWWQ85ZMZPT&keywords=4s+lipo+battery&qid=1636124188&refinements=p_72%3A1248963011&rnid=1248961011&s=toys-and-games&sprefix=4s+lipo+battery%2Caps%2C76&sr=1-6

We will have three components connected to this pcb that will require power from the battery. Those include: an Oak-D camera (https://www.amazon.com/Luxonis-Oak-D-Spatial-Camera-Detection/dp/B09B316YZS/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=oak+d&qid=1636997100&sr=8-2) , a raspberry pi, and four motor controllers(https://www.amazon.com/RC-Brushless-Electric-Controller-bullet/dp/B0754H7XZZ/ref=sr_1_5?crid=105WAUXJN2UGM&keywords=4s+esc&qid=1636124304&s=toys-and-games&sprefix=4s+esc+%2Ctoys-and-games%2C73&sr=1-5). Each of these requires an input voltage of: 5V, 5V, and 5.5V, respectively.

Since these voltages are vastly different from the amount that is put out by our battery, we will need to convert the battery output to a value much closer to the item's requirements. To do this, we will be using a buck converter. This is a simple DC-DC converter that uses a switch to interrupt current supply to an inductor, causing the output voltage to be significantly less than the input. After this conversion, we will make the voltages sent to our parts even more precise through the use of resistors.

Our rover will also need a way to transfer data between it's components for the use of movement, video transmission, object avoidance, and more. To allow these parts to communicate, we will have transmission lines throughout our board.

Stay tuned for a simulation and images of our board!