How Remote Control Helicopters Work

How Remote Control Helicopters Work

Nathan Anderson
Salt Lake Community College

E-Portfolio http://andersonnathan.weebly.com/tech-1030.html

How Remote Control Helicopters Work

Youre walking in the mall and you notice at a booth a helicopter hovering 7 feet in the air. It
makes small adjustments to face you and darts forward. A rush of air, from the helicopter, messes up
your hair as it speeds overhead. After picking yourself back up, a little stunned from almost being hit,
you notice a person behind the helicopter. He is holding a remote control and with carful precision is
directing the helicopters moves with little joysticks. You may first wonder to yourself if he will let you
operate it. As any good salesman would, he agrees to let you try to pilot the remote control helicopter.
He lands the helicopter on his table and begins to give you an overview of how to operate the remote
control.
The remote control is just large enough to fit into both of your hands. Both of your thumbs seem
to align above each joystick. He explains the left joystick is to control how fast the helicopter blades spin.
The joystick is at rest in a down position. I start to move the joystick up and the blades of the helicopter
move. The helicopter stays on the table and starts to skid across it and vibrate with a buzzing sound. He
tells me in order to make a good lift off I need to quickly move the joystick all the way to the up position
and back it down slowly till a desired height is achieved. I move the joy stick to the down position again
and I hold my breath for a second before I give it a try. With one quick jolt, I force the joystick up and the
helicopter responds with a fast climb to eye level and up. I back down the joy stick just before it hits the
ceiling.
Once the helicopter is hovering back at eye level he points to the right joystick. This joystick has
four directions, up, down, left, right. Up is to move forward, I tap it and the tail rotor, parallel to the
ground, spins. The helicopter leans forward and moves a couple feet before hovering in place again. He
tells me to tap down on the joystick and it reverses its action by engaging the tail rotor again in the
opposite direction. The helicopter stops at the previous position and hovers again. Now he says, this is
where a lot of practice helps. He tells me to tap to the left. The helicopter turns to the left but it drops a

How Remote Control Helicopters Work

couple inches in the air. He explains that since the helicopter is not using a traditional tail rotor you
would see on a real helicopter, with the blade vertically to the ground, it uses one of the two main
blades to change its direction. He tells me to tap the control to the right. The helicopter jerks to the right
and moves up a couple inches. When you turn to the left it slows one of the blades down and when you
turn right it speeds up. In order to have a smooth flight you need to constantly move your left joystick to
compensate for each turning action, he states.
The helicopter starts to slowly turn to the right on its own. He twists a knob at the top of the
remote control. By turning the knob to the left the helicopter stops turning automatically and holds
position. Its a calibration knob to help synchronize the two main blades. I point to a switch at the top
left that is label quick and slow. He says it determines how sensitive the controls are. I slowly release the
left joystick to its resting down position and the helicopter lands on the floor. I turn a switch in the
center remote control to the off position and he grabs the helicopter and turns a switch on it to an off
position as well. He starts into a sales pitch but all I can wonder is how does the helicopter work. I buy
the helicopter and take it home.
I unpackaged my new remote control helicopter on my desk at home. It has alternating current
(AC) to direct current (DC) charger, a lithium-ion battery, the remote control, and the helicopter. A
yellow tag tells me I have to charge it before its first flight. The charger included converts 110 volt
alternating current (AC) electricity to 3.6 volts and 400 milliamps (mA) direct current (DC). I look inside
and see two sets of winding wire around an iron block. The AC current in the primary winding creates
an alternating magnetic field in the iron just as it would in an electromagnet (Brian, 2000). In the
secondary winding the magnetic field in the core creates current (Brian, 2000). The thickness and
number of times the wire wraps around the iron block determines what current it can be changed to.
This charger reduces the AC current from 110 volts to 3.6 volts AC. The wires from the secondary

How Remote Control Helicopters Work

winding connect to diodes that transform the current into direct current (DC). The coated wire extends
from the charger to an adapter. I grab the power block charger and plug it into the AC wall socket.
The lithium-ion battery has an adapter on it to connect to the wall chargers adapter. The
rechargeable lithium-ion battery charges by a current of electrons that make, ions of lithium move
through the electrolyte from the positive electrode to the negative electrode and attach to the carbon
(Brain, How Lithium-ion Batteries Work, 2006). The ions attached to the carbon will hold a charge.
During discharge, the lithium ions move back to the LiCoO2 from the carbon (Brain, How Lithium-ion
Batteries Work, 2006) depleting the charge of the battery. When the lithium-ion battery is charged it will
give the helicopter 3.7 volts DC for 800 milliamp hours (mAh), this is equivalent to 15 to 20 minutes of
flight time. As directed I leave the battery on charge for a couple of hours for its first charge.
While the battery is charging I look inside the remote control. It is powered by 6 AA batteries.
Wires lead from the batteries to a power switch. When the switch is turned on the direct current (DC)
electricity powers capacitors, resistors, a transmitter, memory chips, light emitting diodes (LEDs).
The first thing noticed is the indicator LED informing the user the remote control is on. LEDs are
diodes that emit light and only allow electrons in electricity to move in one direction. This is
accomplished by bonding two semiconductors together. A semiconductor with extra electrons is called
N-type material, since it has extra negatively charged particles (Harris & Wesley, 2002). And A
semiconductor with extra holes is called P-type material, since it effectively has extra positively charged
particles (Harris & Wesley, 2002). In its original insulating state -- all of the holes are filled, so there are
no free electrons or empty spaces for electrons, and charge can't flow (Harris & Wesley, 2002). This is
also true if a charge is directed in the wrong direction. When charge flows in the correct direction the
holes are freed up for moving electrons.

How Remote Control Helicopters Work

The next items I notice were multiple capacitors on the circuit board. Capacitors are similar to
batteries but they have the ability to discharge their charge more rapidly. Also Capacitors can also
eliminate ripples. If a line carrying DC voltage has ripples or spikes in it, a big capacitor can even out the
voltage by absorbing the peaks and filling in the valleys (Brain & Bryant, How Capacitors Work, 2007).
Resistors are also scattered about the remote control circuit board. Resistors regulate electric
power going into each component. Resistors also produce heat when electricity passes through them,
an example would be a toaster oven or a light bulb. The most important resistors are connected to the
joysticks. In the standard joystick design, the handle moves a narrow rod that sits in two rotatable,
slotted shafts. Tilting the stick forward and backward pivots the Y-axis shaft from side to side. Tilting it
left to right pivots the X-axis shaft. When you move the stick diagonally, it pivots both shafts. Several
springs center the stick when you let go of it (Harris, How Joysticks Work, 2002) When the joysticks are
moved a pin connected to the axis shafts come in contact with a variable resistor. The specific amount of
measured resistance is sent to the memory chips to be converted into a signal.
The memory chip and transmitter work hand in hand to send a signal to the helicopter. The
memory chip converts information received by the variable resistors into a usable code for the
transmitter. The completed circuit causes the transmitter to transmit a set sequence of electrical
pulses (Tyson, 2000). The transmitter sends bursts of radio waves that oscillate with a frequency of
(Tyson, 2000), 40,680,000 cycles per second (40.680 Mhz) through the remote controls antenna.
The lithium-ion battery is charged and ready to be put into the helicopter. Once the battery is
connected to the adapter, a switch is turned on and power goes to a LED to indicate the helicopter is
receiving DC power from the battery. Capacitors, resistors, electric motors, a memory chip, and a
receiver is powered. The receiver is tuned to receive the specific 40.680 Mhz signal and converts the
signal into electrical pulses the memory chip can send to the electric motor controls. The electric motor

How Remote Control Helicopters Work

controls determine how much power is required for the requested signal and sends it to the electric
motors.
The electric motors turn gears connected to propeller shafts. The shafts are connected to a
blade holder that allows each blade to pivot and fold to prevent serious damage to the blade in a crash.
Atop the top blade is a counter balance that helps stabilize the helicopter in flight.
All power is on and I jolt the left joystick to have my new helicopter jump off the ground. A few
hours later I feel like a pro as I challenge myself to land in various places around the house as well as
going through a couple obstacles. This is including darting over people heads as the remote control
helicopter salesman did to me.

How Remote Control Helicopters Work

Bibliography
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http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/joystick.htm
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