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Drone and UAV Electronics Design

We design the electronics inside drones and other unmanned aircraft: flight-controller and avionics boards, power distribution and motor controllers, battery, hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell power systems, telemetry links and payload electronics. Every board is designed for weight, vibration and EMC, and for the certification route the aircraft will follow, including type certification under India's Drone Rules, 2021.

  • PX4 and ArduPilot hardware
  • MAVLink telemetry
  • Drone Rules, 2021
  • DO-160
  • MIL-STD-810

What we build

What drone electronics do we design?

Flight controllers and avionics

Flight-controller and companion-computer boards: IMU, barometer, magnetometer and GNSS, redundant power inputs, and the interfaces PX4 or ArduPilot expect.

Power distribution and ESCs

Power distribution boards with current and voltage sensing, and electronic speed controllers for brushless propulsion motors using field-oriented control.

Battery, hybrid and hydrogen power

Battery management, and power management for hybrid and hydrogen fuel-cell aircraft: DC-DC conversion between the fuel cell, buffer battery and propulsion bus, with monitoring and protection.

Telemetry and datalinks

Sub-GHz, 2.4 GHz and cellular telemetry and command links with MAVLink integration, and the ground-station interfaces that go with them.

Payload electronics

Gimbal control, camera and sensor payload boards, and on-board edge-AI processing for detection and inspection tasks.

Vibration, thermal and EMC design

Vibration-tolerant layout and mounting, conformal coating, thermal design and EMC control, so radios, GNSS and the compass keep working next to the power system.

Applications

Typical aircraft and missions

Commercial

  • Agricultural spraying
  • Mapping and survey
  • Infrastructure inspection

Long endurance and logistics

  • Hydrogen fuel-cell and hybrid aircraft
  • Delivery drones

Defence and security

  • Surveillance payloads
  • Rugged ground-station electronics
  • Secure datalinks

Standards

Which rules and standards apply to drone electronics?

The applicable set depends on the aircraft, its market and whether the programme is civil or defence. We design to these requirements and prepare for testing and certification; we do not issue certificates.

Drone Rules, 2021

India type certification

Civil drones in India are type-certified under the Drone Rules, 2021. We design and document the electronics for that assessment; the certificate is issued for your aircraft.

RTCA DO-160

Airborne equipment environment

Vibration, temperature, power-input and EMC test categories used as design targets where the programme requires them.

MIL-STD-810 / MIL-STD-461

Defence environment and EMC

Environmental and EMC requirements for defence programmes, designed to where specified and tested at accredited laboratories.

FCC, CE (RED) and WPC

Radios on board

Radio requirements for the telemetry, video and command links in each target market.

How we work

How does a drone electronics project run?

  1. Requirements

    Mission profile, weight and power budget, operating environment and the certification route.

  2. Architecture

    Flight, power, telemetry and payload electronics partitioned, with an off-the-shelf flight controller used wherever it meets the requirement.

  3. Design

    Schematics, PCB layout and firmware, with vibration, thermal and EMC risks handled in layout and mounting.

  4. Integration and test

    Bench and hardware-in-the-loop tests before flight, then support for your flight-test team.

  5. Certification and production

    Documentation for type certification or defence qualification, and the manufacturing release.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Working with Rapid Circuitry

How much does a project cost, and how is pricing structured?

Each project is quoted as a fixed-scope proposal: a statement of work with milestones, deliverables and pricing, sent within 3–5 business days of the discovery call. The price depends on the requirements, how mature the design is, technical complexity, the number of prototype iterations and the validation scope. Longer engagements can also run as a retainer or a hybrid of both. For budgeting before you contact us, our hardware development cost benchmarks and the PCB design, firmware and IoT cost guides give indicative ranges with their assumptions stated. They are planning ranges, not quotes.

How long does a project take?

It depends on the scope and on what already exists when we start. As planning ranges from our cost benchmarks: a single PCB design takes 2–6 weeks, embedded firmware 4–16 weeks, an end-to-end IoT product 3–9 months and a regulated medical device 9–18 months. The proposal sets out a dated milestone plan, and you receive weekly progress updates during the project.

Who owns the intellectual property?

You do. Our contracts assign the project work product — schematics, PCB design files, firmware source code and documentation — to you as work for hire, and we hand over the source files, not only fabrication outputs or compiled binaries. The exact terms are set out in the signed agreement for each engagement.

Do you sign NDAs?

Yes. We sign a mutual NDA before any technical discussion of your project. Send your standard NDA or use ours; we return it signed within one business day.

Can you work with clients in the US, Europe and Japan?

Yes. We are based in Hyderabad, India, and work with product teams in India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and other markets. Our business hours are 09:00–18:00 India Standard Time (UTC+5:30), and we schedule design reviews across time zones, typically from US Pacific to Central European time. Japan is 3.5 hours ahead of India, so a Japanese working day overlaps our morning and early afternoon. Prototypes and documentation ship by international courier such as DHL or FedEx. Our hardware outsourcing guide covers what to agree before an international project starts.

Do you hand off to manufacturing, and which contract manufacturers do you work with?

Yes. We prepare the manufacturing release package — fabrication and assembly drawings, the BOM with approved manufacturers, programming files and test specifications — and hand it over to the contract manufacturer (EMS) you choose. If you have not chosen one, we help you evaluate candidates through technical capability assessments and a pilot build. See manufacturing support.

Are you ISO 9001 or ISO 13485 certified?

No. Rapid Circuitry does not hold ISO 9001, ISO 13485 or other certificates. Our processes are aligned with ISO 9001:2015, and we design products to the requirements of the standards that apply to them — for example IEC 60601-1, IEC 62304 and ISO 13485 for medical devices, IEC 61000 for EMC and IPC-A-610 for assembly. We prepare the product and its documentation for certification testing at accredited laboratories; the certificate or approval is issued for your product by the laboratory, notified body or regulator.

What do you need from me to start?

A short, non-confidential description of the product and what it must do (sensors, connectivity, on-device processing), the target production volume and unit cost, the markets and regulations it must meet (for example FDA, CE or FCC), your timeline, and what already exists: a concept, a proof of concept, schematics, PCB files or firmware. After the NDA, the next step is a 30-minute discovery call with the engineers who would work on the project, followed by the fixed-scope proposal. Send a project brief to begin.

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