Skip to main content
2 of 3
Fix formatting
Kralc
  • 6.1k
  • 1
  • 15
  • 52

What are the usual engineering considerations for a UAV current sensor?

Current sensors are a popular feature in both multicopter and fixed wing flight control stacks.

Most of them are analog, i.e. convert the current into a voltage using a small-value shunt resistor (and possibly a voltage amplifier). That voltage is then read by the flight controller via an ADC pin. I've been trying to make my own, and in such cases it is useful to know the best practices in the industry, however my Google-Fu was not strong enough to find those, and reverse-engineering is a rather tedious proposition, since I only have an ESC-integrated one.

The main questions I couldn't find answers to are:

  • Is the shunt resistor usually mounted high-side (i.e. at the positive battery terminal), or low-side (at the negative terminal), and why? Does it matter?
  • What class of amplifier, in terms of precision, is used for the sensed voltage?
  • What range of output voltages does the FC expect?
  • Is there any smoothing (lowpass filtering) applied to the sensor's output to reduce aliasing from possible high frequency current ripple?
  • If there is any difference between standard sensors used in betaflight FC stacks vs., e.g. APM or PX4 flight controllers, what are they?

If someone could provide a circuit schematic of a "typical" current sensor, it would be very much appreciated as well.