ESP32 WiFi Micro Drone

"Bumble Bee" 🐝 is a palm-sized ESP32-based WiFi quadcopter built on the ESP-Fly platform and powered by the Espressif esp-drone firmware.

This project involved:

• 🔬 Assembling and soldering a complete micro quadcopter platform
• 💻 Building and flashing firmware using ESP-IDF
• 😩 Debugging hardware and firmware integration issues
• 🎮 Configuring and validating WiFi flight control

🔧 Hardware

Core Components:

• Seeed Studio XIAO ESP32-S3 — main flight controller (WiFi + processing)
• Custom PCB — integrates the MPU6050 IMU and MOSFET motor drivers
• 4x brushed coreless motors — driven directly from the onboard MOSFETs
• LiPo battery (220 mAh) — onboard power source
• 3D printed frame — supports motors and electronics

💻 Firmware

The firmware is based on the open-source esp-drone project from Espressif Systems.

It includes:

• Real-time flight control loop
• Sensor fusion from IMU
• PID stabilization control
• WiFi command interface
• PWM motor signal generation
• FreeRTOS-based task scheduling

📱 Control App

The most reliable mobile controller I found for this setup was LiteWing.

• App Store
• Google Play

It connects directly to the ESP32 over WiFi and provides stable throttle and attitude control. The feature that made a big difference was adjustable trim. This allowed correction of small drift during hover without modifying PID parameters.

🛠 Firmware Setup & Flashing (macOS)

The ESP-FLY tutorial focuses on Windows for flashing. Below are the steps I followed to set up ESP-IDF and flash the firmware on macOS.

1️⃣ Install ESP-IDF

Install ESP-IDF v5.0.7 following Espressif’s official macOS setup instructions.

After installation, your ESP-IDF directory path should something look like:

~/esp/esp-idf-v5.0.7

2️⃣ Activate ESP-IDF Environment

# Navigate to ESP-IDF directory
cd ~/esp/esp-idf-v5.0.7

# Load environment variables
source export.sh

3️⃣ Clone this Repository

git clone https://github.com/themaxboucher/esp-drone.git
cd esp-drone

4️⃣ Build the Firmware

idf.py build

5️⃣ Flash the Firmware

idf.py -p <PORT> flash monitor

Replace <PORT> with the serial device associated with the ESP32 USB connection.

To list available ports:

ls /dev/cu.*

Flashing uploads the compiled firmware to the ESP32 and opens a serial monitor for debugging output.

🙏 Attribution

This project is based on the original ESP-Fly platform and firmware ecosystem.

Original Project & Tutorial

• 🎥 YouTube Tutorial (Max Imagination):
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_mZsiZcy7s

• 📖 Elektor Article: ESP-FLY – The Smallest ESP32 Drone You Can Build
  https://www.elektormagazine.com/labs/esp-fly-the-smallest-esp32-drone-you-can-build

Firmware Base

• 🧠 esp-drone open-source firmware by Espressif Systems:
  https://github.com/espressif/esp-drone

Flight Control Ecosystem

• 🚁 Crazyflie open-source drone platform (control architecture reference):
  https://www.bitcraze.io/crazyflie/

---

This repository documents the hardware assembly, firmware configuration (macOS ESP-IDF environment), system tuning, and validation work built on top of these open-source resources.

📜 License

This project inherits the GPL-3.0 license from the original esp-drone firmware.

See the LICENSE file for details.