Development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle​​ ​(UAV) Control Using Virtual Private Network

(VPN)
Elanthamizhan S​*,! ​,​ ​Giridhar ​Chandrasekaran​#​,​ ​Balaji B​$​,​ ​Mohan Kumar M​*​.
!​
Department of Aeronautical Engineering, KCG college of Technology, Chennai - 600097, India.
$​
Department of Electronics And Communication Engineering, S.A Engineering college, Chennai - 600077.
# ​
Department of Electronics And Communication Engineering, KCG college of Technology, Chennai - 600097.
!Email: elan.dreamspire@gmail.com,​ ​ioccupyspace@gmail.com.

ABSTRACT

The Design and Development of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) using Virtual Private Network (VPN)
to increase the range of controllability. The UAV nowadays are operated in 2.4GHz frequency which has less
range controllability. Our project states that, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) can be controlled anywhere
in the world, if the UAV has access to internet. This can be achieved by creating Virtual Private Network
(VPN) between the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and the control station. Here the UAV acts as the Server
and the control station acts as the Client, the Server will respond according to the Client request. The data
transferred between the Server and Client is through the Encrypted VPN tunnel. The request passed by the
Client is Encrypted and transmitted to the Server, so the data is highly secured. The UAV are connected to
internet with help of Raspberry pi and 3G /4G data card and the control station is connected to internet with the
help of local Wi-Fi or Broadband connection.

Keywords: ​Virtual Private Network (VPN), Raspberry Pi, Encrypted VPN Tunnel.

1. INTRODUCTION: approximately in the line of sight . This can be

increased using a power amplifier which will
Unmanned aerial vehicles have become very
intensify the power of signal transmission and in
popular these days both commercially and for
turn extend the range but only by about 2-3
tactical and surveillance uses by the defense and
kilometer*. This paper proposes that instead of
also the law enforcement. Commercial unmanned
using 2.4GHz, the internet can be used as a platform
aerial vehicles which are controlled by a controller
for the transmission of data. As known to most, by
or a joystick use a bandwidth approved by the
using the internet large bits of data can be
Federal Communication Commission (FCC) that is
transmitted at high speeds[1].
readily available to the public i.e. 2.4GHz, which
has a maximum transmitter power of 1Watt and a 2. QUAD COPTER:
Carrier Bandwidth spectrum of 10MHz or higher.
The UAV here is a quad copter or more commonly
This trans-receiver has a limitation, which is range.
known as a quad. A quad is an aerial vehicle which
The range of the transmitter is about 1 miles
has four motors that help it orient itself in space. has to be downloaded from the server onto the
These four motors are controlled by a flight unmanned vehicle and then the instructions have to
controller. The quad can be used for various be executed[6].
surveillance purposes like traffic management and
There are a few disadvantages to this method which
also for tactical roles. As the quad is small and has
are
the minimum number of motors, which is four, it is
easy to maneuver and is very agile. The quad that 1. The unmanned aerial vehicle would need
has been built has certain design specifications a high downloading speed which may or may
which are mentioned in the table below[5], not be available in all areas.
2. It is not very secure as the cloud server
could get hacked.
S.N COMPO TYPE SPECIFICAT
O NENTS ION
3.1.2 DIRECT LINK:
Quad
Carbon S500(500mm
1 copter In this method the unmanned aerial vehicle will be
fibre dia) hosted as server and the joystick acts as the client.
Frame
The data from the client is transmitted to the server,
Brushles Emax which is the unmanned vehicle, and the instructions
2 Motor are executed. But the problem for this method is
s motor Mt2213-935kv
that, a portable internet connection needs a router to
Carbon 10x4.5 be able to configure the unmanned aerial vehicle as
3 Propeller
fibre a server while the router cannot work without a
wired broadband connection. And without the
Lithium 11.1v,
4 Battery router the device cannot be established as a server
polymer 3300MAh,35c as it requires a Dynamic Domain Name System
Hobby wing (DNS) setting which if you can see will be available
5 ESC - in the configuration page of your router. However,
30A
there is a way around this which is the solution or
Flight Multiwii Cruis method being proposed in this paper.
6 -
controller v 2.5
3.1.3 USING ​VIRTUAL PRIVATE
Table 1: Quad Copter Requirements NETWORK (VPN):

3. METHODOLOGY: A virtual private network (VPN) enables users to

There is more than one way in which the unmanned
aerial vehicle can be controlled using the internet:
3.1 CLOUD:
The simplest method is to establish a cloud link
where the data from the joystick or user will be
transmitted to the cloud server. From there the data
send and receive data between two devices as if
they were in a local area network. Thus benefit from
the functionality, security and management policies
of the private network can be availed. Now, this
same concept can be used to send data from the
client, which is the joystick, to the server, which is
the unmanned aerial vehicle. The VPN engine will
create a static IP for both the client and the server.
A static IP is a never changing IP address. In this
case no Dynamic DNS setting is required as
Dynamic setting is used only for those IPs which
need to be constantly changing. Using the static IP a
link is established with the client and the server and
this link is called an encrypted VPN tunnel which
has 256 bit encryption. So it is safe to say that
hacking will not be a problem​. ​Fig 1 shows the
methodology applied in this paper[7].
Fig 1: Client and Server Module is connected
through Encrypted VPN tunnel.
4.CLIENT AND SERVER MODULE:
Fig 2: Client Module Block Diagram.
The client refers to the joystick and it’s supporting
components as shown in Fig 2, which are controlled
by the user to transmit data to the server. The client
comprises of
1. Joystick
2. Encoder
3. USB to TTL converter
4. PC/Laptop
4.1 JOYSTICK:
Joystick is an input device which consists of control
sticks that are mechanically connected to a
potentiometer and the movement of the control stick
varies the resistance. With the help of the
conversion circuit the varying resistance is
converted into analog values that range from
0-1023, and this is nothing but 10-bit analog value
of 5V. Each stick corresponds to different controls
like roll, pitch, yaw and throttle[1].
4.2 ENCODER:
The four inputs are given in analog from (0-1023)
from the joystick to the microcontroller (Encoder)
as shown in Fig 4. Though these four inputs are
given to the microcontroller, data needs to be
analyzed to know which is what. For this very
purpose an identifier is used. The identifier gives or
codes these values such that yaw, pitch, roll and
throttle can be separated or identified. For example
yaw can be coded as Y0-Y1023 where “Y”
represents Yaw[2].
Fig 3: Functionality of Encoder in Client
Module.
Once these data are segregated they are then
transferred to the computer serially as shown in Fig
3​, where they are processed and transmitted to the
UAV. Coming to the programming part, python
script is used[2].
4.3 USB TO TTL CONVERTER:
USB to TTL converter is used for converting USB
standard data to Transistor Transfer Logic or vice
versa. This enables the data to be transferred from
the USB port to the TTL without the need for any
hap-hazard wires[2].
4.4 PC/LAPTOP:
A desktop or a laptop can be used to receive the
data and transmit it to the server. This encoded data
that is transmitted from the encoder is given through
the USB to TTL converter, and from TTL convertor
to the computer with an internet connection which
is used to transmit the data from the client to the
server. This data is the data that is required for
controlling the UAV and also to perform
maneuvers. Any standalone laptop or desktop can
be used for this purpose; all that is needed is a
proper internet connection.
The UAV or the server is where the data is
received, processed and executed. The server
consists of various components as shown in Fig 4,
which are:
1. 3G Data Card
2. Raspberry pi B2
3. Decoder
4. Flight controller
5. BLDC Motors
6. Electronic Speed Controller
Fig 4: Server Module Block Diagram.
4.5 3G DATA CARD:
Server module is connected to the internet via the
3G data card. It is a portable device used for
connecting with the internet. The 3G data card is
commercially available as well as easy to use and
hence this was chosen. The speed of a 3G data card
usually varies from 3.6mbps to 21mbps*.
4.6 RASPBERRY PI B2:
Raspberry pi is a miniature computer which may
not have the computational power as a desktop, but
for its size packs quite a punch. It can do just about
anything that can be done with a PC, like browsing
the internet, playing a video, creating documents,
etc. All of this can be done by using a standard
mouse and keyboard. Raspberry pi has been used in
many projects because of its flexibility. The
raspberry pi B2 is the second model of the raspberry
pi series, the first being raspberry pi B+. Similar to
the B+ the B2 also has
● 4 USB ports
● 40 GPIO pins
● Full HDMI port
● Ethernet port
● Combined 3.5mm audio jack and composite
video
● Camera interface (CSI)
● Display interface (DSI)
 ● Micro SD card slot
● Video Core IV 3D graphics core
Apart from these the B2 also has a 900MHz
quad-core ARM Cortex-A7 CPU and 1GB RAM.
This is more than the B+, which housed a 512MB
RAM and an ARM1176 processor. As it has an
ARMv7 processor, it can run Snappy Ubuntu
Core, Microsoft Windows 10 as well as the full
range of ARM GNU/Linux distributions.
4.7 DECODER:
Decoder processes its inputs, which is a serial input
from the raspberry pi as shown in Fig 5 that is
required for flight. The data from the client is added
with the identifier to find which values correspond
to which control. In the decoder the identifier is
removed and analog value, which ranges between
0-1023, is encoded by the client and is converted to
PWM signals which range from 1ms-2ms as shown
in Fig 5. This signal is taken out through the GPIO
pins in the decoder and given to the flight
controller.
Fig 5: Functionality of Decoder in Server
Module
PWM signal is a method of modulation to encode
the control data into pulsating signal because the
Electronic Speed Controller which controls the
BLDC motor can be operated only with the help of
PWM signal. While Pulse width of 1ms makes the
BLDC motor to rotate at minimum RPM, Pulse
width of 2ms makes the BLDC motor to rotate at
maximum RPM.
4.8 FLIGHT CONTROLLER:
Flight controller is a device that is used to maintain
the stability of the flight and also to orient the flight
in space. It consists of an on-board accelerometer,
gyroscope, magnetometer and barometer which are
the main sensors used for giving data to the flight
controller to help maintain the stability of the flight.
The PWM signal which is generated in the decoder
is given to the flight controller via the GPIO
pins[4].
4.9 BLDC MOTORS:
Commonly used motors for UAV’s these days are
“brushless” motors as they cause minimum friction.
A cylindrical shell of magnets rotates on bearings
around a core of tightly coiled wire. The propeller is
attached to the top. These motors are reliable as
long as dirt is kept out of the bearings and also with
a little bit of maintenance[4].
Motors are assigned various ratings, the most
common is the kv, which refers to the motor
velocity constant with which the rotations per
minute (RPM) is determined. Therefore this number
is very important as it defines the motor’s flight
characteristics based on specifications like battery
voltage and take-off weight.
4.10 ELECTRONIC SPEED CONTROLLER:
The electronic speed controller is basically an
electronic circuit which is used to control the speed
of the motor. This is often used in the case of
brushless motors, and is achieved by transistor
switching. It is incorporated with battery eliminator
circuit to power the external devices. This is usually
rated with ampere and should be selected carefully
depending upon the maximum current drawn by the
motor with full load. To be on the safer side the
ampere rating of the ESC should be higher than the
motor ampere rating[4].

5.RESULTS:

Fig 7: Creating Network Name and Defining

Network type

Fig 7 shows the process where the group name is

created which can be named as per the wish of the
Fig 6: Quad copter with Raspberry pi and 3G user and also the network type is chosen, which in
data card. this case is a mesh network.

Fig 6 shows the UAV with Raspberry pi connected

with 3G data card, where these two devices are
powered with separate power source for reliable
function.

The procedure involved in creating a VPN is

explained in detail below:

The network is created using LogMeIn Hamachi

which has to be installed on both the client and the
server. This software is used for creating zero
configuration VPN which is employed in
establishing the link between the server and client.
This network is the one that is used for the
transmission of data. The encrypted VPN tunnel is
established by adding client and server to a
particular group, a feature which is available in Log
Mein Hamachi.
Fig 8: Creating Authentication to join the
Network
Fig 8 shows the process where the server gives a
request to the Log Mein Hamachi to join a network
where the ‘join requests’ in the page can either be
automatically accepted or every time a request
appears an approval has to be made by the user.
This should be defined by the user by selecting one
of the options under ‘join requests’ in the page.
Also, if needed, a password and a username can be
created.
Fig 9: Adding Client and Server to the Network
Fig 9 shows where the server and the client to be
grouped should be selected in ‘select members’
option in the page and by clicking the finish button
the server and client are grouped into a single
network. Once the server and client are grouped the
encrypted VPN tunnel is created between the server
and client. We can see the group and the network
has been established from this page and also
connectivity status of the server can be viewed as
shown in the below Fig 10.
Fig 10: Viewing the Status of the Quad copter in
Log Mein Hamachi GUI.
Fig 11: Pinging the Quad copter IP
Fig 11 shows the ping status of the Quad copter IP.
As seen, the reply is positive from the Quad copter
which implies successful functioning.
Functionality of the client is described below. The
control data from joystick is encoded by the encoder
by adding the identifier to the yaw, pitch, roll, and
throttle data from the joystick and this value is
packed into serial information. This serial
information is sent to the Pc/Laptop using TTL to
USB converter. The converter is connected to the
particular USB port in the computer and the com
port number can be viewed from the device
manager in control panel. With the help of python
script “import serial” the data from the particular
com port is imported in to pc/laptop and value is
stored in a variable, and with the help of the socket
programming the value stored in variable is pushed
to the Quad IP.
 Server Module) and is serially exported through the
USB to the decoder, where the data is decoded and
converted into PWM signals. PWM signals are sent
to the flight controller and the flight controller will
give the necessary commands to BLDC Motor. By
the above described method we are able to access
the UAV using Internet. Now the UAV can be
controlled from anywhere in the world.

Fig 12: Establishment of connection between PC

and Joystick 7. FUTURE WORK:

Fig 12 shows the establishment of connection In future the plan is to incorporate flight parameter
between pc and joystick. The connection once measuring instruments, like GPS and other sensors
established will enable the transmission of data in the UAV and also to send the information to
from pc to the Quad. client. In the client side creating GUI to visualize
the information sent by the server module will be
Functionality of server is described below. The another aspect of the future works.
information sent by the client is passed through
For Safety reasons a failsafe condition is
direct tunnel and falls into the Quad IP. With the
established, which can be determined by the users.
help of socket programming the data is stored in a
That is they can hover the UAV until it reconnects
variable inside sever and with the help of “import
or make it fly to the target with help the GPS and
serial” the stored data is exported to the decoder.
Autopilot System.
This information gets decoded and is converted into
PWM signals and pushed to flight controller using 8. REFERENCES:
GPIO pins. Here the motor operations are separated 1. Design and Implementation of
and sent to their respective electronic speed e-Surveillance Robot for Video Monitoring
controllers by the flight controller, which adjusts the and Living Body Detection”,
movement of the motor to meet the client’s Dr.ShantanuK.Dixit& Mr S. B.
requirements. Dhayagonde, Volume 4, Issue 4, April 2014,
6. CONCLUSION: ISSN 2250-3153.
2. Priyanka .M and Raja Ramanan .V,
The static IP has been successfully created for both “Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Video
the client and the server module using virtual Surveillance Using Raspberry Pi”,
private network and imported USB information International Journal of Innovative Research
from the joystick in the client module. This in Science, Engineering and Technology
information is encoded using the encoder and by Volume 3, Special Issue 3, March 2014
using python script the information is transferred to 3. “Wi-Fi Robot for video monitoring &
the static IP. This information which is pushed to surveillance system”, Pavan.C, Dr. B.
the static IP is received by the raspberry pi (The
 Sivakumar, Volume 3, Issue 8,
August-2012, ISSN 2229-5518.
4. David Rocky, "Tactical Unmanned Aerial
Vehicles,” volume 18, AUVSI magazine,
pp.28-30, August 2004.

5. http://udel.edu/~sagarptl/QuadcopterFinalRe
port.pdf.
6. https://www.priv.gc.ca/resource/fs-fi/02_05
_d_51_cc_e.pdf.
7. http://www.cisco.com/networkers/nw00/pres
/2400.pdf