360 ° Antenna Tracker

thingiverse

This is a 360° turning turret antenna tracker design for pointing directional antennas towards the FPV vehicle. https://www.maartenbaert.be/quadcopters/antennas/triple-feed-patch-array-antenna/ The tracker is meant to be empowered by the u360gts controller by Raul Ortega. https://github.com/raul-ortega/u360gts This thing is a subsequent development of Juan Trillo's antenna tracker design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2495035 The original is an exceptional well engineered design. However, from the moving turret up I judged there's even room for improvement. For part's names reference, see drawing. Part numbers 0XYa are referencing the original design part numbers 0XY of Juan's design, if not new. The new payload carrier is designed to carry an additional towards-vehicle-pointing arducam. So a fully equipped setup provides an on-board (FPV) as well as a from-earth (conventional) video stream. Details Turret top "012a_turret_top.stl": Turret base, top, and cap probably were meant to be screwed together with 4 screws. But that is bad for changing things on the turret. Additionally: small holes don't make it that perfect in 3D printing. Thus, additional 4 screw mounts for the screws holding the turret cap alone were added. So one might dismantle the cap without loosening the screws holding together base and top, inferring the integrity of the turret base. Additionally, screw holes for servo mounts now are through holes for easy after-print-drilling. Turret cap "019_turret_cap.stl": The new cap is a whole sphere, covering the entire turret for two reasons. A more stylish design finish and an active cooling controlled airflow through the cap. Also, the design features 1) a holder for a combined GPS/magnetometer to be placed far away from any other electronics. And 2) there are antenna mount holders for mounting SMA plugs at the side of the tower to provide support for the video transmitter relay's antennas. 3) there is a fan mount for active cooling. Air outlet is the 2mm gap between turret top and turret cap. GPS&Compass holder "020a_GPS_compass_holder.stl" Just a gear for glueing the sensor on top, far away from other electronics. Servo arm "013a_servo_arm.stl" The original design turned out to not fit the width of the turret top with the servo discs provided with the servos. Further, the improved servo arm is of constant thickness in the area of the servo discs for ease of placing screw holes fitting the individual servo disc's or arm's holes. Last, a centering blind hole for aligning both, the servo's arm and the tracker's arm was added. Payload carrier "022_tipo4_payload_carrier_digital.stl": This carrier was designed to carry both, receiving antennas as well as an arducam, with a Raspbery Pi Zero acting as the video encoder. This setup wil provide an earth shot of the vehicle. With this design, a USB cable connects from the video Pi on the tilting payload holder to the turret, with a USB cable being much more robust than those delicate arducam flat cables. The USB cable provides power as well as streaming the digital video stream from the receiver Pi to the relay Pi placed in the turret top. Antenna holder "023_antenna_holder.stl": This is a just doubled holder from actuna's design: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2971485 for the triple feed patch array14dB open hardware patch antennas. These holders have to be glued onto the payload holder such that a difference in pan angle of both antennas of about 10+ degrees is achieved. Hot glue does the job. "026_antenna_holder_angle_support" For the ease of angled antenna mount. "024_Pi_Cam_Lid.stl" and "025_Pi_Zero_Lid.stl": These are cloned parts form aforementioned designs. They are posted her just for reason to keep STL-sourcefiles together. "028_cable_clamp" This tiny part is for tieing down antenna cables on the turret top. With a diversity receiver put underneath the turret cap two antenna cable leads are needed. In order to avoid sharp edges, mounted clamps form a hyperboloid cable outlet. No kinks! SORRY! Up until now I did not manage to drive the second tilt servo. Juan's design was meant to be empowered by the u360gts controller. It turned out, u360gts is not capable of driving a 2nd servo (until April 2023). "027_servo_arm_bearing" This is a replacement for the 2nd servo missing. To be fit in place of the 2nd servo. The very bearing is a round 4mm rod with a thread just at one end, available as model landing gear axle. "009a_servo_gear" Juan's design provides very small holes for the screws, fitting the gear to the pan servo disc. Since drilling thermoplastics is a nightmare, holes in 009a are now 2mm diameter. Make: Photos of the make will follow in May 2023.