YMFC-AL - Build your own self-leveling Arduino quadcopter - with schematic and code 

Man, I'm doing eletronic engeneering at UFSC ( I'm from Brazil ) and as a project of my transducers class I tried to find a good project to build and create a YT video about it. So far I'm very exited about your tutorial and schematics, so thank you a lot for taking your precious time to create this great tutorial, It really is helping me a lot with understanding about Quad's.

I've made a successful flight today after almost 2 months of figuring things out. I have no experience in drones whatsoever prior to this. The past weeks have been so frustrating attempting to fly drone as part of an objective in a grad school requirement. Thank you very much for this wonderful videos, its been frustrating yet fun experience..Thank you very much!

Just finished my quadcopter and all I have to say is THANKS. it flies perfectly, followed this step by step and the result is amazing, i'm really happy right now. Congratulations for this series.

My High school Seniors in Arapahoe Nebraska built and flew this!!! It worked great, and was a great project. You did just enough (All) of the heavy lifting to keep it accessible to high school students with little programming background. Took us about a 6 weeks (30 classroom hours) with three students and myself to build and then debug it (Most of the time was finding the errors and fixing them). I gave students very little instruction and just let them build from your site and others. Great Experience!

I just finished my first test and it's flying. I'm super happy but I'm even happier to know that there are people who provide such documentation for such a great project, thanks a lot Joop, the real MVP on earth.

Hi Joop, I just finished building and flying my first quadcopter,YMFC-AL. It works beautifully!!! Thank you! I would like to thank you for the sharing your knowledge!!! I was able to get up to speed very quickly on what I need to know e.g. Info about PID controllers, gyro/accelerometers, AVR embedded programming, transmitters/receivers, basic electronics and wiring, micro controllers, understanding spec sheets, bit-manipulation of registers, bitwise logical operators, your Arduino sketches, and quadcopters in general. Wow what a project!!! Just phenomenal!!! Thanks. Thomas D. Wilhelm Robotics Enthusiast

I do not normally like a video nor comment on it, but this sure does deserve adequate recognition. The maker did a very good job both in the software and with the documentation. Well done.

Worked for Arapahoe Public School in Nebraska!!! Thank you for sharing your code and Schematics! My students are standing on the shoulders of a giant for sure! Thank You!!!

This was so well explained. Good Job Bro

Thanks a lot Joop!!. I ran the setup program and below are the output for gyro configuration Gyro calibration =================================================== Don't move the quadcopter!! Calibration starts in 3 seconds Calibrating the gyro, this will take +/- 8 seconds Please wait.................... Axis 1 offset=67.15 Axis 2 offset=-36.96 Axis 3 offset=-45.95 =================================================== Gyro axes configuration =================================================== Lift the left side of the quadcopter to a 45 degree angle within 10 seconds OK! Angle detection = 2 ( Axis inverted = no Put the quadcopter back in its original position Move stick 'nose up' and back to center to continue Lift the nose of the quadcopter to a 45 degree angle within 10 seconds OK! Angle detection = 1 Axis inverted = no Put the quadcopter back in its original position Move stick 'nose up' and back to center to continue Rotate the nose of the quadcopter 45 degree to the right within 10 seconds OK! Angle detection = 3 Axis inverted = no Put the quadcopter back in its original position Move stick 'nose up' and back to center to continue =================================================== LED test =================================================== The LED should now be lit Move stick 'nose up' and back to center to continue =================================================== Final setup check =================================================== Receiver channels ok Gyro axes ok =================================================== Storing EEPROM information =================================================== Writing EEPROM Done! Verify EEPROM data Verification done Setup is finished. You can now calibrate the esc's and upload the YMFC-AL code. Can you please let me know gyro axes are Ok? In your video Angle detection is 1,2 and 3 but in may case it is 2 , 1 and 3. In your case Axis inverted - No, Yes and Yes but in my case all No. Let me know if the above setup output is correct for gyro configuration. Thanks in advance.

Hi Joop. Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm just starting in the drone world, but you've saved me a lot in the learning path. I'll use your concepts in my designs, and I'll use your lessons learned. What I got from your videos is that Arduino uno could be slow for managing receptor, sensors, motor control and the algorithms for navigation, so I'll try to start from the beginning with distributed processing and/or faster processors. Thanks again, Juan.

Hi Mr.Joop, I have built and tested successfully my own Quadcopter using Arduino Mega. My model has many functions like auto-balanced, holding altitude, holding position, return home, autoFlight, and emergency return,... I used this project for my Graduate thesis and now I was graduated. Honestly, I want to thank you and give you a big respect for all knowledges you share. Wishing you all the best!!

Joop I have to thank you for these amazing tutorials, 2 months ago I had never even heard of an Adruino never mind ever flown a quadcopter. I have just finished building and learning to fly my very own Adruino based Quadcopter thanks to you! And you know what, it flies fantastically. Its been a doddle to make because of your intuitive videos and web site and I have loved doing it I really have, cheers mate. I do have one question though when I up the pid_i_gain_roll above 0.00 even by .01 it lurches/rolls to the right and I can't control it. Thank You for teaching me so much, I am going to go autonomous next..Ps doing this has kept me sane with all these coronavirus problems..Keep safe..

My quadcopter flies perfectly but after some time (around 1 to 2 min) suddenly all motors stop , it falls off and get crashed. All motors are rotating in correct direction and connections are perfectly soldered . What might be the reason for this sudden switch off. I read all Q/A and all comments but did not find solution for this

This is a great idea. A quad that can be home built from very cheap parts and electronics. All the while giving step by step instructions in an easy to understand diy way for each and every step. Simply awesome. The only problem I can see is there may be a lot of new flyers banging quads into everything :D

You are awesome. I am just now gathering parts. I just wanted to say thank you so much for all you video and document.

Hi there, thank you so much for these very useful videos. I have already built my quad-copter but when I try to do all setup I received this massage : Final setup check =================================================== Receiver channel verification failed!!! (ERROR 6) Gyro exes verification failed!!! (ERROR 7) The setup is aborted due to an error. and I checked on the Q and A page but I don't understand what are you mean on error 6 and 7 respectively?! 1)One stick is assigned to two functions and 1)One axis is assigned to two functions. Thanks,

Awesome project! This morning I got all the pieces to build the quadcopter :D

Thanks Joop for your new super great video ! asap I will try it on my quadcopter build following your previous precious video lessons and let you knows. By now, with old fw I had lot of trouble in calibrating procedure, but watching this new video I see lot of valuable new tools to have more control of what's going on.

Thanks a lot for taking the time and creating such an amazing tutorial. I'm currently working on the quad project, this tutorial helped me alot in understanding the quad with Arduino very clearly. Thank you very much. Much love from India.

Awesome project, this has been really helpful to look at! For the blade balancing it is going to do a little better to stick the tape on the propellers downward facing surface. Since typically 80% of the lift is generated from the low pressure surface so you will be dealing with lower aerodynamic forces on the other side when the surface imperfection adds turbulence so there should be less aeroelasctic vibrations.

Exciting stuff. Thank you for your hard work to enable us to play. Just love it.

Mr. Joop, You are the best.You took some much pain to teach people.Because of you many can now realise their dream of making a drone. Thank You

Hello Joop, I'm really lucky that I've found that nice guide and the time is more than perfect. I'm in R/C since a few years, building planes from scratch, having some cam birds, but also some boats and even micro helis and toy class quads for bad weather. Caused by 3D printing I came in contact with Arduino and right now I want to tip a toe into real quads, so I've ordered a F450 flamewheel frame, and sets of 2826 motors, BLHeli ESCs, props, ... (korting in a lot of shops tghese days, you know) , the needed LiPos, BEC, Arduino and of corse a Taranis+ and FS-i6 I have anyway. However, as FC I have only some old CC3D lying around for what I've ordered an external baro/compass, but hey it's much more fun to do it with Arduino and learn how it's really working. ;) As I said, the time is perfect and all I need to start with this project is to order the MPU-6050, while I have to wait for the postman with my F450 frame. Maybe that AL feature should be also fine for my cambirds too. ;)

Thank you for putting this out Joop, it is a very clean implementation of the KISS principle, once again. It looks like the NaN problem I was facing traced to my attempts to calibrate and normalize the 1G values of the accelerometer (unnecessarily, as it turns out the IMU is fine without this extra step). I've now flown your AL and my own and somewhat surprisingly, where your version really surpassed mine (apart from less 'dead wood' here and there, compared to my approach) is in the Z stability. My version tended to use up quite a bit of the Z-dimension, as I flew about. Anyway, I wanted to be sure to let you know, there seems to be no hidden NaN lurking in your IMU. Thanks again for everything!

Thank you very much for this great video tutorial. Today I did the first flight with my quadcopter. It works as you described it in your video but I think it takes some time to fly it safe. I've learned so much. Thank you!

This video broke my brain. Thanks for trying to explain your work.

Everything explained very well ....it is the best thing you did and never seen before, thanks so much .

I have a question. are the pitch, roll angles compensated to remove the linear acceleration of quadcopter? because when quadcopter moves, accelerometer produces inaccurate values for angle calculation.

Will I be considered as adamant if I say 'man u did well'? I am an Electronics engineering student from India and I take freaking' interest in aerial vehicles. I love you sir Joop, God must be lucky enough to bless you!

You have a great selection of videos and your site is very easy to navigate and to the point.

Bro you are awesome with all your affords at this project we all viewers are able to make this happen I am a 13 year old boy from india created this quadcopter with all your codes . Thanks a lot bro. Big respect from me

Dear Joop, I made another quadcopter according to your guide......it is awesome...it is flying very well.....Thank you very much for your guide...I learned lot...you are a really good teacher....

THANK YOU VERY MUCH i had made it Completly and the performance was Great i now want to add some new features like self leveling and self localization at last to be fully Autonomous

love your videos man! If it is in high enough demand, could you do a video on mounting a camera on a gimbal with servos?

Thanks to you, joop, I have been able to achieve my dream. The drone has flown perfectly with the Arduino nano. Just the pid needs some adjustment, but, even so, everything flies very well. Thank you, thank you very much for your great work. congratulations

Auto lvl or self lvl, it all depends on the transmitter you use and mapping the pot data with the esc speed as well using the pid to balance the quadcopter. It's different setup using different transmitters ready made ones for rc or homemade modified one.

Sir, this tutorial is awesome ! I already built my YMFC. Now is tuning the PID value.

Thank you so much Mr. Joop for a wonderful and educational video. We made it and because of this we passed our laboratory subject :D. Again thank you for sharing your knowledge

Thank you so much for all of this Joop!! I've learned so much from your videos.

Hi sir, thank you so much for sharing your knowledge, i followed your tutorial and now i have a really stable quadcopter, i was trying to do something similar to you, programming and auto level controller for a quadcopter but using other technique; implementing on a raspberry pi 3 an LQR control system + an Extended Kalman Filter to stimate and regulating the angles of the quad, but with no good results (now i know it was because of the sampling time of the loop, i was working with the minimun frecuency for the ESC - 50Hz and i noticed thanks to your videos that 50Hz is too low frecuency, i know the problems of the implementation for the sensors and all the hardware (procesing times, the sensor´s noise) and your way to solve it was really amazing. I am very grateful. my next step is go back to my aplication on the RPI3 but keeping in mind all that i learn here. P.S: sorry for my bad english.

Hey Joop, your project is amazing. One thing is interesting to me: as far as I can see is the PID loop based on the angular velocity from the gyro. Wouldn't it be more accurate to base the PID loop on absolute angle values (x, y, z)?

i have been waiting for this......thanks a lot for your hard work...gonna try it asap...

wow man, that was awasome! thanks for the amazing effort! will try this asap...

thanks JOOP BROKING you helped me a lot for making this drone I am just in process

Hallo Mr Brokking, Thank you for your great videos. I tried to build my own ymfs-al according to your videos and website. The only differences in the build are: my 4 Motors have a KV value of 810 instead of your 1000KV. (using 4 30A-ESCs) I wanted to use my 4s lipo. Therefore I changed the R2 & R3 resistor values according to your Q&A section formula: R3 was 1500Ω and needs to be 8200Ω R2 was 1000Ω and needs to be 3300Ω ((16.8V - 0.6V) / (3300Ω + 8200Ω)) * 3300Ω = 4.65V because the resistor values were to high for me (not wanting to serial connect alot of single ones) I tried to apply the formula and came to the idea to use 300ohm for R3 and 700 ohm for R2. This gave me 4,86 V. I made through the whole setup procedure according to your videos and everything seemed fine until today. It looks like somehow i killed my arduino uno. I cant upload sketches anymore. 2 red leds still blink the green one is inactive. I know would like to know: Was my resistor-choice wrong & why? I forgot to change the code according to your Q&A regarding the different resistor values. Which consequences does this have? Today before the arduino uno broke I wanted to measure the voltage between Vin and Gnd and measured around 15V. (with 4s lipo connected) Did I hearby cause a shortcircuit and this is why it broke? Before it broke under calibration conditions everything seemed to work. When i installed the flight controller and tried starting it i had 2 crashes. Then resoldered and recalibrated... Then i fixed it to the ground with tape. After a few short tries 1 Motor didnt work as the others did and the thrust stick wasnt as programmed (i use a flysky fs i6) But most important the whole quad stopped working after a few seconds. What reason probably caused this? I hope you can help me with my questions (especially concerning the resistors!), and thank you for your great work!! Kind regards from Austria PS: I still have an arduino mega left. Is it reasonable to use it without to many changes in the programs? Which pins would have to be changed, and how would i have to change the different registers you spoke of in another comment?

thanks a lot for this particular video, We are creating a drone for a project at my school using your code, but a structure different that yours. We've had a lot of problems, but I think video is the one going to fix everything. Guess I just didn't see it before

As a promised! i have tried it and worked very well. Thank you Joop, you are a kind man. God bless you.

Definitely building this! Great job.

Joop, thank you for the best instructional video's on RU-vid. I am fairly recent to Arduino and Multi-copters, but have been working through a design for a variable pitch / constant RPM quad for a while now, and I am so grateful for the source code you have provided which will be a great starting point for my project.

Thanks for the Very easy tutorial. One question. How can I add a GPS? and also how can I assign flight modes? Thanks!

Hi, Thanks for great code and explanation. Why did you use raw gyro reading in stead of angle from complementary filter to calculate error in pid ? and can you explain this line of code gyro_roll_input = (gyro_roll_input * 0.7) + (gyro_roll / 65.5)*0.3

wow thank you Joop!! this is amazing!

this is just awesome. Great work and thank you for sharing !!!

I have been watching your tutorials for a while Joop n amazed how your tutorials simplify everything. Just a query if you gonna plan to make a tricopter how would you change the codes for PID.

Hi Joop, great tutorials and easy to read code. Having made a quad using the pro-mini I would offer this feedback to anyone else having a go:1. The pro-mini can't be used to power the gyro & receiver on VCC. An AMS1117 5V regulator is sufficient, but solder the tab to a heatsink (could be the quadcopter board itself) and use an electrolytic capacitor (uF range) on the output (the boards themselves have small capacitors)2. Your website has no mention of calibrating the accelerometer and has a Q&A that says it isn't necessary in general as you can use sub-trims to do this. I think its much easier to test-fly if you do calibrate the accelerometer. I was about to modify the code to do so but found that there is already a template in the flight controller code. My recommendation is to modify the ESC code to give 1 or 2 decimal places on the accelerometer reading (its stable to >1 decimal place when not running - make sure the quadcopter is flat with a spirit level) and use that figure in the relevant part of the flight controller. My corrections of 3-4 degrees made the test flights much less scary.

Amazing video's! I came across a 6 axis gyro, have you ever worked with one of those? Sounds like a real improvement from the 3 axis gyro, maybe you could make a video about it and/or introduce it to your quadcopter project. That would be a nice feature

Thank you very much for the videos! My quadcopter worked perfectly!

Amazing... I wish I would like to have all this information a few years before... Thank you.

Amazing video! Thank you so much, you are a great youtuber! Wishing success

1st time done with the help of your video. Really well explained and helpful.. Thanku sir....

Very good project Joop Brokking.

Bedankt voor de uitgebreide uitleg en downloads, na alles volgens schema gesoldeerd te hebben kon ik de setup zonder problemen doorlopen. Volgende stap is leren vliegen :-)

Hey, I'm done with the setup. The setup went well. The ESC calibration isn't responding when I send 'r' or 'a' through the serial monitor. It stops at "reading receiver signal" and does not proceeding any further. What should I do?

thank you, Joop!!!! because of you, I have flown my first drone that too a homemade drone

Wonderfull projects that i have ever seen. But why we don't hear more from you Mr. Brooking? Best regards.

Thanks to you Joop for sharing your work with us, I finally have a fully functioning AL-quadcopter. From here on out I aim to improve and add some features and would like to begin by increasing the battery capacity from 2200mAh. Can you give me some advice on what to consider when looking at higher capacity batteries and changes in the circuit schematic? Thanks!

Hello Joop Brokking, I'm so glad that I found your website and youtube channel. It help me a lot with my final year project. I have followed all the steps you had shown including the circuit connection. I have done the set up, but until the ESC calibration i have some issues. If all the four motors and ESCs, i had calibrate it individually with same receiver and transmitter, should i recalibrate it all together again? I trying to calibrate again but the motor beep-beep with one second interval, where in manual said that "check if the throttle wire has been properly plugged into the throttle channel on the receiver". Does this mean there is something wrong with my circuit ? Another question is, before this, my transmitter and receiver is used for fixed wing uav, do i have to do some setting in my transmitter if i want to use it for quadrotor ? Thank you for your time and I'm sorry if my question is too simple for you to answer as I have on less than 1 year experience in this field.

Thanku so much sir i have completed building of my quadcopter and fly well and levelling is also perfect but problem is that after some time all motors stops. I had not used any resistors which you have told for potential drop . Is this is the reason for stopping of motors?

hi Mr Joop Brokking, first thank you for sharing your work I have question: without propellers motors turn on, pid turn good, but when i place the propellers the motors turn on and after 5 seconds turn off. this problem is due to the effect of propellers to the mpu 6050 ( vibration ) thank you very much

Thank you sir. You are great. You are helping lot to all the people who don't know coding

I have accumulated 5hrs of flight time with the new AL code integrated into my controller and have not had an NaN crash in all of that time. I found a flight park about 5 minutes from work and fly every day on my lunch hour. I am learning to fly, as I go, so primarily I'm doing a lot of high speed "out-and-backs", "walking the dog", tail-in circling, full throttle punch outs, VRS recoveries and the like. So, it appears that NaN was addressed, either by improving my electronics layout/routing (reduced EMI) or with the software filter. I am also fairly convinced that the I-term 'death wobble' that I experienced was due in large part to the pendulum effect of the relatively heavy landing skid and camera/gimbal setup I was using. I have been flying without any of the 'under carriage' and the PID's are now much closer to default values. I bought an inexpensive flamewheel kit that includes 4 DJI-style legs and I plan to make a detachable lower plate, with the landing gear and a lighter Walkera gimbal attached. This will give me a 'convertible' setup, when I want to switch from 'sporty' to 'camera platform' and should be much lighter than the rig I was flying.

hi joop its a great project and works well! can you advice how to add agps for this quad?

AMAZING PROJECT!!!!! CONGRATULATIONS!

Kasongo Pereira: Hello Joop Bokking, thank you for opening my mind with your enlightening videos and simple to understand. I mounted the YMFC AL successfully, but there is one problem that needed your help: once the quadcopter in the air I keep adjusting all time the throttle up or down because there is no stability point. Can you please help me figure out what's going on? I use Rádio Flysky Fs-i6 Fs I6 2.4g 6ch transmitter. The frame is DJI F450.

joop I need one more help can u please tell me the minimum vibration that you get while running the motors with prop mounted I am getting 30-40 after adding some tapes is it ok or I should reduce it

please make a vedio on how to add camera on this drone and some other features such as one key return I am waiting for your reply

hello, I love this tutorial and will definitely help me with a drone application project i am working on. i was wondering if using a different drone frame would require any change in the code for the arduino. thanks

I’m stuck. I followed through with the series and built my drone as best as I could. When I fire up everything, the drone flips at lift off. Any help regarding this?

First off I got to say congrats on your part. This is awesome! I also have a question. I am in my senior design class and would be interested in doing something similar to this but I need it to be able to lift some more weight since I will be adding other components to the drone. Do you think this same overall setup would work as long as I adjust the PID controls and get new motors?

And that was a nice explanation with detailed vd discussion and mentioned everything about the performance circuits and systems with programming and controls,,,,, Thanks a lott sir,,,,it helped me a lot in my project♥️✨👍🙏

Great work sir..I am impressed with your work

Your such a great engineer and youtuber ! Your videos empowered me soo much that I have decided to rewrite my own code , inspired on your but with new flavours of mine. I am now passioned by this Thanks a lot. Currently i am Studying engineering in France. Have a great time in the Netherland.

im trying to make a cube based blimp robots with no moving parts for the challenge thanks for the research. these will be slower but hopefully better for household stuff when they need to idle

can you add the GPS hold function and other functions to the the FMCA-AL in a way that new DIY people can grasp and understand

Awesome, works great.. it would be cool if you could show how to add the 10dof MPU with Barometer & compass functionality to this quad. Thanks a million for sharing your great work :)

Hello, I would like to know if you worked on the mathematical modeling of the seesaw system / Bi-rotor

Hello! Thank you for all your videos about this project ! You helped me a lot learning about quadcopters! I have a couple of questions : Can i controll the quadcopter only with an Arduino Uno board and NRF24L01 transceiver or maybe i can controll it wired directly from Arduino with a potentiometer because for the moment i want to give it only throttle and maybe calibrate the 6050 gyro module to simulate a PID controller for the quadcopter to stand still in the air. The main reason is because i do this project for my college and im in a little hurry :) thats why i don't want to have a fully controllable quadcopter for the moment. The RC Receiver you are using is too expensive.. so maybe u can help me with an answer? Can i connect the ESC's with a breadboard and give them commands with the help of PID controller ? Have a nice day !

Hi, I really enjoy your videos. I'm learning so much. I have one question. Is it normal that with throttle all the way down the motors start spinning when I start the quadro? I would like to have the motors not spinning when the throttle is all the way down. Best regards. Josh PS: Are you an engineer or is this your hobby? Also can you recommend some literature about PID and arduino programming and maybe ESC and Arduino programmin or did you get all the basics from the internet? I find it very stressful to sear for all the different parts and would like a book or tutorial that explains the basic programming and communications systems between the different components.

hi Joob, thanks for the really amazing video series, if you can please explain the i2c clock speed part since i really facing some difficulties in changing it to 400Mhz in twi.h file

This project is more valuable for the inventor. Encourage you to further development.Thank you.

Hi Joop, Can you explain about value "3500" in line: "esc_1 += esc_1 * ((1240 - battery_voltage)/(float)3500);"?

this progect works with arduino nano and pro mini without any modifications. tip:when orienting the direction of the motors place the front face that you want to be the leading face of the drone to the back and then assign the motors: front face (placed back) cw pin 7 LF --------|---------RF pin 4 ccw | | ccw pin 6 LR-------|---------RR pin 5 cw and if your using the same frame you just need some tiny modifications in pid values(works ok with stock values) .

Hi bro, when my drone fly high level it lose the control and fly away. can you help me fix that? thank you!

Thank you so much your videos really help me fix old drone arduino based....Thank you so much.....I'm from Philippines

Great project - I have built and calibrated this drone. Before I fly it I would like to know if quadcopter has a failsafe mode..?? Didn't notice any contingency in code. Thanks.

thank you sir ... if I want to make a hexacopter by using this cood ,what should i change ?

Sir what happen if this drone gone out of range during flight?...And thanks for this cool project..

great video, can you plz explain if i replace RC transmitter receiver with esp8266 (wifi module) and have to calibrate the esc's how to send 2000us and 1000us code?

Dear Joop. All your videos are extremely helpfull. Thanks for taking the time. I have one question on the Arduino code. All your calculations assume 4000 micros between cycles for the 250Mhz frequency. When I test your code stand alone it works great. But when I use among other code I have my cycle goes up to 25.000 micros (because of all the extra processing) and the whole math won't work. I've even tried to proportionally increase the 0.0000611 multiplier but it doesn't work either. It ends up updating the angle to slow and it takes several seconds to actually report the new angle. Any ideas how to adjust the math for when the cycle is not 250Mhx? Thanks!