Preliminary Development and Performance Testing of an Autonomous Battery Charging System for a Two Legs Multicopter

Although the demand for autonomous drones is rising, drone charging systems are still executed manually. This study aims to design and fabricate an autonomous charging system for a two-legged multicopter UTM JagaDrone, including identifying the charging box size. Its propulsion system uses a six-cell Lithium polymer battery with 12,000 mAh, and the charging box should be transportable by using a Toyota Hilux 4-wheeler vehicle. After an extensive literature review, we designed a mechanical aligner to centre the multicopter on the charging pad. Afterwards, a Battery Management System (BMS) is used to monitor the charging of the battery. The system was designed to charge the drone battery within 90 s, which previously required about 15 min using manual execution. Since the 12A fast charging mode reduces the life cycle of the battery, a balance charge with 1A current is used. Using balance charge mode, we achieved about 1.1 V within just 1.6 h. Overall, the designed autonomous charging system reduces the charging procedure by almost 81.81%.