DIY FPV Drone Dictionary

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"FPV DRONE LINGO"

This dictionary is the leading online "Do It Yourself First Person View Drone" resource, featuring every definition we think is relevant to the drone-related topic including parts, concepts, laws, and more. Each definition provides a clear and concise description of the term to help our users gain a comprehensive understanding of the concept.

There are so many Quadcopter and Drone technical terms that it can be difficult to understand let alone remember all of them at the beginning. If your goal is to become First-person-view drone racer you should understand these terms. I hope this list of FVP, Drone, and Drone racing terms and definitions help all of those who get to this page as much it has helped me understand the world of FPV Drone racing.

ACC

Accelerometer

A device that measures acceleration forces in a specific direction.

Active Braking

AKA Damping Light. A feature in BLHeli that improve throttle responsiveness.

AH

Altitude hold

A flight mode that maintain height, it uses “BARO” sensor.

AIL

Ailerons

Also known as roll.

AL

Auto Levelling

A flight mode that allows the copter to stay level. It uses “ACC” sensor

ALT

Altitude

The vertical distance you are from ground.

APM

Ardu Pilot Mega

A type of flight controller board.

Arducopter

A flight controller firmware software.

ARTF

Almost Ready to Fly

An ARTF aircraft package usually includes everything you need to fly, but it requires simple assembly.

AUW

All up weight

Max weight of a copter including LiPo Battery and other parts, ready to fly.

BARO

Barometric Altimeter

It measures altitude by using barometric pressure.

BEC

Battery Eliminator Circuit

A voltage regulator found in some ESCs. Designed to provide constant 5V voltage for RC equipment such as Flight controller and radio receiver.

BNF

Bind and Fly

A BNF plane, helicopter, or quadcopter requires only one thing to fly: a BNF transmitter with enough channels. If you’ve got such a transmitter you are all set! Otherwise you just need to buy one.

Bootloader

Special code stored in non-volatile memory in a microprocessor that can interface with a PC to download a user’s program.

CC3D

CopterControl 3D

A type of flight controller.

COG or CG

Center of Gravity

The average location of the weight of a copter. It’s important to make sure the COG of your copter is right in the middle (or close enough).

Crius

A type of flight controller board.

DD

Direct Drive

A type of prop designed to go straight on a motor shaft without a gear reduction.

DOF

Degree of Freedom

It give clues as to whats on the “IMU”. For example 6DOF = 3 axis Gyroscope (gyro) + 3 axis acc; 9DOF = 3 axis Gyroscope + 3 axis Accelerometer + 3 axis Magnetometer; 10DOF = same as 9DOF and adds a Barometric Altimeter.

Drone

An unmanned aircraft that is guided remotely by a pilot. For military use, these aircraft have weapons and/or surveillance gear. For personal/recreational use, these aircraft often have HD cameras. The term is popular in the media and can be misleading sometimes.

DSM / DSM2 / DSMX

These are proprietary technology of an RC equipment maker, Spectrum, and DSM stands for “Digital Spectrum Modulation”.

DSSS

Direct-Sequence Spread Spectrum

DSM uses Direct-Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS) modulation technique. As with other spread spectrum technologies, the transmitted signal takes up more bandwidth than the information signal that modulates the carrier or broadcast frequency. The name ‘spread spectrum’ comes from the fact that the carrier signals occur over the full bandwidth (spectrum) of a device’s transmitting frequency.

EEPROM

Electonically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory

A type of non-volatile memory used in computers and other electronic devices to store small amounts of data that must be saved when power is removed, e.g.,static calibration/reference tables. Unlike bytes in most other kinds of non-volatile memory, individual bytes in a traditional EEPROM can be independently read, erased, and re-written.

ELEV

Elevator

Also known as pitch.

EMI

Electromagnetic Interference

EMI is disturbance that affects an electrical circuit due to either electromagnetic induction or electromagnetic radiation emitted from an external source.

ESC

Electronic Speed Control

The ESC is used to convert signal from Flight controller or radio receiver, and apply the right current to the electric motors. It also usually includes a Battery Elimination Circuit (BEC), which provides power for the RC system and other onboard electronics.

FAA

Federal Aviation Administration

An United States Department of Transportation Agency, it has authority to regulate and oversee all aspects of American civil aviation.

FC

Flight Controller

Flight Controller is the brain of your multirotor.

FET

Field-effect transistor

FET is a device which enables us to use one smaller electrical signal to control another bigger one.

FOV

Field of View

A measurement how much environment you can see through a camera lens. Usually measured in degrees.

FPV

First Person View

A technique that uses an onboard FPV camera and wireless connection, to allow a pilot on the ground to see a live stream video while flying, through a FPV goggle or monitor.

FTDI

Future Technology Devices International

The name of the company that makes the chips. A standard to convert USB to serial communications. Available as a chip for boards that have a USB connector, or in a cable to connected to breakout pins.

GCS

Ground Control Station

Software used to monitor a Flight Controller Board. The OpenPilot GCS for example.

Gimbal

A specialized camera mount which have the ability to rotate and tilt using servos or brushless motors. This allows the camera to stay in the same position, regardless of the drone’s movement, making for a very still and smooth looking image.

GIT

A version control system for software developers.

GPS

Global Positioning System

Used to track movement or hold position at pre-defined coordinates.

Ground Effect

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GYRO

Gyroscope

Provides the angular velocity around 3 axes of space in degrees. Assists with keeping a quadcopter level and facing the same direction.

HEXA

Hexacopter

A type of multicopter, that has 6 motors, no servos, all motors on same level.

HK

Hobbyking

A famous RC Vendor based in China but with EU, US, AU, RU warehouses as well.

I2C

Inter-Integrated Circuit

A serial bus that allows multiple low speed peripherals, such as sensors, to be connected to a microprocessor.

IMU

Inertial Measurement Unit

A Break Out Board containing sensors that reads and sends data to the flight controller.

JST-SH

A type of Connector

Kalman Filter

The algorithm used in Multicopter Flight controllers. It is primarily used to combine accelerometer and gyro data to provide an accurate description of aircraft attitude and movement in real time.

KK

Kaptein Kuk

Multicopter controller by Rolf Bakke.

LC FILTER

An LC Filer is a circuit that removes frequencies (noises) from a power supply and smooths / cleans it so the equipment being powered.

LIPO

Lithium Polymer Battery

Aka LiPoly. Most used power source for RC Hobby these days because of its high energy storage density-to-weight.

LOS

Line of Sight

When you are flying your aircraft by watching your aircraft directly, you are flying LOS. The way of flying is FPV.

LPF

Low-pass Filter

A technique that filters out high frequency signal.

MAG

Magnetometer

An electronic compass – used to let our FC ( Flight Controller ) know which direction it is pointed in, compared to the Earth’s Magnetic field.

MegaPirate

a flight controller program software that copies Arducopter.

MWC

MultiWii Copter

MultiWii is a general purpose software to control a multirotor RC model. It can use various sensors but was initially developed to support Nintendo Wii console gyroscopes and accelerometers.

OCTO

Octocopter

A type of multicopter, that has 8 motors, no servos, all motors on same level.

Oneshot

Oneshot125

A faster way of communication between FC and ESC.

OSD

On Screen Display

A piece of hardware that overlays flight data in text or graphical form over an existing live stream video.

PCB or PWB

Printed Circuit Board

A board with copper traces used to connect various electronic components such as ESCs, Video transmitter LEDs etc.

PID

Proportional Integral Derivative

The three parameters that you can adjust to change the copter’s flight performance. In theory PID is a control loop that attempts to minimize the difference between a measured process value and its desired value by adjusting the control input of a process.

PPM SUM (CPPM)

Pulse Position Modulation

A way of sending sequence of multiple signals down one signal wire.

PWM

Pulse Width Modulation

The square-wave signals used in RC control to drive servos and speed controllers.

QUAD

Quadcopter

A type of multicopter that has 4 motors, no servos, all motors on same level.

RC

Radio Control

The foundation of our hobby, it’s also used to refer to the hobby as a whole, radio controlled cars, multirotor, planes boats and more.

RCG

RCGroups

A very popular RC forum.

Revo

Revolution

The 3rd generation of OpenPilot Controllers.

RF

Radio Frequency

Common frequency bands RC hobby use are 5.8gHz, 2.4gHz, 1.2gHz, 433mHz, 900mHz Not all bands are available in all countries, and some require a HAM (Amateur Radio Operator) license.

RPM

Revolutions Per Minute

the number of times a motor shaft rotates a full cycle in 60 seconds.

RSSI

Received Signal Strength Indication

RSSI is a measurement of how good your radio signal is.

RTF

Ready to Fly

Refers to the multicopter you buy has everything you need to start flying. You just open up the packaging, charge and install the batteries, and off you go.

RTH

Return to Home

A GPS feature that when enabled, it returns the aircraft to the “home” position where it took off.

RTL

Return To Launch

A GPS feature that when enabled, it returns the aircraft to the “launch” position where it took off.

RUD

Rudder

Also known as yaw.

RX

Radio Receiver

A device that receives commands from our radio Transmitter, and sends them directly to the servos or to the Flight Controller.

SBUS

SBUS is a type of serial communication protocols, shared by Futaba and FrSky, that supports up to 18 channels using only one signal cable. Check out this post about different radio signal.

SF

Slow fly

Propellers that are designed to go on a motor using a gear reduction to lower prop speed.

SimonK

A famous ESC firmware optimized for multirotors.

SMA and RP-SMA

Sub-Miniature Version A – Reverse Polarity SMA

Different Connectors for FPV gear.

Throttle

Controls on your radio transmitter, it changes the speed of the motors.

TRI

Tricopter

A type of multicopter that has 3 motors, one servo for yaw, all motors on same level.

TVL

TV Line

TVL (TV Lines) is basically a measure of how good the FPV camera resolution is. The number is based on how many alternating black and white lines can be displayed in its image horizontally.

TX

Transmitter

A device that sends our commands to the Receiver, controlled by the pilot.

UART

Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter

Serial communication port. A piece of computer hardware that translates data between parallel and serial form.

UAV

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Aircraft without a human pilot onboard. Control is provided by an onboard computer, remote control or combination of both.

UBEC

Universal Battery Elimination Circuit

a DC voltage regulator.

VRX

Video Receiver

A device that receives video signal from our video Transmitter, and display the live footage on our FPV goggle or screen.

V-tail

A type of multicopter that has 4 motors, 2 tail motors form a V shape, has no servo

VTX

Video Transmitter

A device that sends video signal to our video receiver, video captured from a on-board camera.

X8

A type of multicopter that has 8 motors and of a shape of X, 4 motors on top, 4 motors at bottom, no servo.

XT60

A type of connector.

Y4

Y4l

A type of multicopter that has 4 motors, 2 tail motors one on top of the other, it looks like a tricopter but has no servo.

Y6

A type of multicopter that has 6 motors and of a shape of Y, 3 motors on top, 3 motors at bottom, no servo.

Yaw

Flight term used to describe the rotation of a drone around it’s center axis. Controls which direction the quadcopter is facing.

KV

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"GUI"

Hi, all. My name is Guillermo Bueno A.K.A. "GUI", this is my blog/site. As you maight have noticed, I'm really interested in drones, but not the kind most people want, I'm interested in the kind of experience FPV drones offers. If you are reading this is probably because you are really interested in getting into the hobby so please feel free to contact me if you have any sugetions, questions or if you find something wrong. Please remember everything in this website is my own opinion, I'm always open to constructive critisim.

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Hopefully this website gets big and more people get to contribute.

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Hopefully this website gets big and more people get to contribute.

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Hopefully this website gets big and more people get to contribute.