Power Architecture 2022 Vanguard

 Problem Statement

How will we provide power to WARG’s drone electronics?

Meeting Notes:

• Goal: Provide power for all devices on WARG's aircraft in e generic fashion

  • For S22, this is being done as an exercise to bring up our own PDB and prepare ourselves for making an in house power distribution system

  • Q: For S22, should we model a hypothetical load based off 2021 drone?

  • Daniel mentions make something usable for long term

  • Kevin mentions don't use something that requirements improvement

  • Discussion is trending towards a no?

• Requirement:

  • The power architecture of the drone shall prevent cascading failures from occurring or impacting the power of other systems

  • The power architecture of the drone shall be capable of powering 5V and 12V devices

  • The power system of the drone shall utilize a common connector standard

  • The power system of the drone shall be capable of accepting power from 3S/12S battery

  • The power architecture of the drone shall directly supply battery voltage to all airframe motor controllers

  • The power system of the drone shall be capable of monitoring battery voltage and total current draw

  • The power system shall not destory any components connected to it

• Moonshots:

  • Cell monitoring/potential BMS

• Brainstorming:

  • Aim for power architecture to be safe, reduce dependency, avoid cascading failure

  • Capable of powering 3.3V, 5V, 12V devices

  • Plan for 5S-12S (Battery cells in series, each LiPo battery is ~3.7V, so we're saying 53.7V -> 123.2V = 50.4V)

  • Power protections

  • Capable of supplying VBAT to ESC's

  • Plug a drone into a wall?

  • Easy to replace components

  • Ability to monitor voltage and current sensing

  • Inrush current limiting

  • BMS