Building autonomous drone

PX4 Autopilot
1

Hey, new here

I have a project in mind to build a drone using PX4.

The idea is to build a 7-inch drone that can fly autonomously while following a ground control hub (initially a laptop, later possibly something like a Raspberry Pi). The drone should send camera data back to the hub, and I also want a remote controller for manual override. Could someone check the components below and tell me if this is the right approach? Maybe you could give some advice on what to change, as I would like to minimize the cost. This would be my first time building something like this, so I would appreciate any advice.

Planned components:

Flight Controller: MicoAir743 V2

ESC: AM32 4-in-1 55A

Capacitor: 1000uF 35V

Low-ESR Motors: EMAX Eco II 2807 1300KV / BrotherHobby Avenger V3

GPS/Magnetometer: Mateksys M10Q-5883

Battery: 6S 4000mAh Li-Ion or 6S 2200mAh LiPo

External BEC: Mateksys Micro BEC

Frame: TBS Source One V5 7" / iFlight Chimera7

Communication & Payload: ELRS 868/915MHz receiver (MAVLink telemetry)

VTX: TBS Unify Pro32 Nano

VTX antenna: TrueRC Singularity / Lumenier Micro AXII

Camera (analog CVBS + UART control)

Ground side:

RC Transmitter: Radiomaster TX16S MKII / Radiomaster Boxer (ELRS)

GCS: QGroundControl (Laptop)

USB VRX: Skydroid 5.8GHz UVC OTG / Eachine ROTG01 Pro High-gain 5.8GHz patch antenna

Does this setup make sense for PX4 autonomous flight + MAVLink telemetry via RC + analog video to laptop?

2

Hi there!
This looks resonable to me.
One note would be that when sending MAVLink over ELRS, you will have limited bandwidth, and Range. Depending on your application this may or may not be an issue.

Also, it will highly depend what you want to do with the video feed - processing analog video can be significantly harder than digital video, but again, depends on your application.

3

Thanks for the response. The overall distance isnt more than 1 kilometre / about 0.7 miles. The video may need to be processed on the hub laptop, but first I will see how the data transmission performs and then decide on the best approach. Any resources you would advice on learning how to handle MAVLink?

Any advice on what to look out for to avoid errors while building it?

4

I cannot help you with MAVLink unfortunately.

The build should be staightforward, follow any generic tutorial. Make sure to check and test everything properly before flying far away.