Development of Long Range Radio Control System for an Unmanned Disaster Relief Helicopter

In this research work, Long Range (LR) radio control system has been developed for an unmanned disaster relief and survey helicopter. The proposed radio control system is developed to overcome the short communication range problems in unmanned helicopters in initial off-the-shelf configurations. System development approach has been used to identify the available radio components, to integrate the components to implement the system and to test the implemented system. Developed LR radio system has been successfully tested for its range and endurance. For range testing, change in servo motor angles with respect to distance has been measured and analysed. Maximum range of 48 km has been achieved, using the proposed system, and endurance of 2.5 hours has been predicted by measuring the drawn current by the proposed LR radio control system.