🤚 Gesture-Controlled Drone

Pilot a quadcopter with your hand using flex sensors and an MPU6050.

📋 Overview

Ditch the joysticks. Build a wearable glove that reads your hand's tilt (roll/pitch) and finger curls (throttle/yaw) to wirelessly transmit control signals to a drone.

What you'll learn: NRF24L01 radio protocols, analog mapping for flex sensors, and building custom wearable electronics.

Estimated time: 6-8 hours. Difficulty: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Expert.

🧩 Components Needed

Component	Specification	Qty	Notes
Arduino Nano	x2	2	Transmitter & Receiver
NRF24L01+	2.4GHz Transceiver	2	With antenna
MPU6050	IMU	1	For glove tilt
Flex Sensors	2.2 inch	2	For index/middle finger
Drone Kit	Compatible receiver	1

📖 Step-by-Step Tutorial

Sew the Glove

Carefully sew the flex sensors to the fingers of a tight glove. Mount the IMU and Nano on the back of the hand.

Read the Glove

Map the IMU pitch/roll to drone pitch/roll (-45 to +45 deg). Map the flex sensor analog values to throttle (0-100%).

Radio Transmission

Pack the 4 control values (Throttle, Yaw, Pitch, Roll) into a struct and transmit it via the NRF24L01.

Drone Receiver

The second Arduino receives the struct and generates a PPM (Pulse Position Modulation) signal that the drone's flight controller understands.

💡

The NRF24L01 is highly sensitive to power supply noise. Always solder a 10uF or 100uF capacitor directly across its VCC and GND pins.

💻 Code / Configuration

gesture_glove.ino

INO

// Gesture Transmitter (Snippet)
#include <SPI.h>
#include <nRF24L01.h>
#include <RF24.h>

RF24 radio(9, 10); // CE, CSN
const byte address[6] = "00001";

struct DataPacket {
  byte throttle;
  byte yaw;
  byte pitch;
  byte roll;
} data;

void setup() {
  radio.begin();
  radio.openWritingPipe(address);
  radio.setPALevel(RF24_PA_MAX);
  radio.stopListening();
}

void loop() {
  // Read flex sensor for throttle
  int flexVal = analogRead(A0);

⭐Reviews & Ratings

—

0 reviews

5★

4★

3★

2★

1★

...

Loading reviews...