Mayfly · KOSGEB Advanced Technology project

Autonomous Drone Charging Station

A solar-assisted, fully autonomous wired charging station that talks MAVLink. It was Mayfly's KOSGEB advanced-technology project; I designed the system architecture and wrote all the embedded firmware single-handedly.

2022 – 2023 Sistem mimarisi & gömülü yazılım (tek başına)

Overview

The biggest limit of rotary-wing UAVs is short flight time. This station lets drones land and charge by cable on their own, without human intervention. It was Mayfly's ~one-year, KOSGEB-funded advanced-technology R&D project.

My Role

I designed the system architecture and wrote all of the STM32-based embedded firmware (C/C++) and the MAVLink communication single-handedly. This is where I first coded flawless MAVLink communication on an STM32 — my first professional step into industrial drone and MAVLink work.

How It Works

The STM32 control board reads voltage/current sensors, drives step motors and relays, and communicates with the UAV over RFD900x using MAVLink. On the power side, a solar panel + grid backup is managed by a BMS for balanced charging. As the UAV approaches, the station's covers/panels open, the drone aligns and lands autonomously, and charges with no human intervention.

Outputs & Engineering Targets

Target specs of the designed station: 600 W/h solar generation, grid backup, <50 kg, 1000×1000×1500 mm, 3 km comms range, <60 min charge for a micro UAV, IP65, portable by two people, compatible with different drone systems. In the first phase I experimentally verified that Li-Po cells can be charged this way with a 150 W panel and designed the balanced-charging (BMS) architecture. The project received significant KOSGEB funding.