Schulich UAV Power Distribution Board

Schulich UAV – Power Distribution Board Project

About Our Team

Schulich UAV is a student-run engineering team from the University of Calgary dedicated to designing and building autonomous aerial vehicles for competitions, such as SUAS, and real-world applications. Our team is composed of passionate students specializing in mechanical, electrical, and software engineering, all working together to push the boundaries of UAV technology.

Project Overview

Our project aims to develop a custom power distribution board (PDB) to improve the efficiency, safety, and reliability of our UAV's power system. Based on feedback from previous competitions, we identified that traditional wiring methods were prone to issues such as complex wiring, accidental reverse polarity connections, and inefficient power management. To address these challenges, we designed a dedicated PCB-based power distribution system that offers a more structured and reliable solution.

Why We Built It

During high-pressure competition scenarios, troubleshooting power issues caused by messy wiring and unreliable connections proved to be a major setback. To overcome these problems, we developed this power distribution board to:

• Provide an organized and safe power interface for our UAV's batteries and peripherals.
• Implement reverse polarity protection to prevent incorrect battery connections.
• Monitor and transmit real-time power telemetry to our Ground Control Station (GCS).