My role: TVR Hardware Lead for 2026/27 cycle. I own this year's hardware stack and am designing three boards end to end, through the team's design reviews.
Boards I am designing:
Flight Controller PCB: Dual-core STM32H745 carrying the full sensor suite (RTK GNSS, UWB, triple IMU, baro, magnetometer, and LiDAR) and a custom 915 MHz telemetry radio (SX1262), running the real-time estimation and control loop.
ESC PCB: Dual-channel, 50A-per-channel custom ESC (STM32G0 + AM32) with bidirectional DShot RPM telemetry, six-step commutation, dead-time and shoot-through protection, and integrated battery current/SoC monitoring.
USB-C PD Battery Charger PCB: A self-contained buck-boost charger (up to 14S, ~90W) with USB-C PD (TPS25751D + BQ25756), cell monitoring, and passive balancing. Designed to live inside the vehicle with only a USB-C port exposed on a panel, so the full battery pack can be charged in place without disassembly, a reusable charging subsystem used across both TVR and UBC Rocket's liquid rocket.
Other boards in the stack (not my design this cycle):
Backplane PCB: Power distribution and battery management (cell monitoring, voltage/current monitoring, passive balancing), the board-to-board mezzanine interconnect, and camera/stack power.
UBC Rocket PROJECT: TVR - Thrust Vectored Drone
Introduction:
A custom, coaxial thrust-vectored drone built within UBC Rocket as a technology demonstrator for guidance and control behind landable, reusable liquid rockets. The eventual goal is to develop a thrust-vectored landable liquid rocket.
TVR is now in its second design iteration. The vehicle flies on a coaxial pair of EMAX ECO III 2808 motors driving contra-rotating props, mounted in a two-axis gimballed cage actuated by Dynamixel servos, vectoring thrust in pitch and roll while using differential motor torque for yaw rather than the fixed-orientation rotors of a conventional multi-rotor.
This year's (2026/27) redesign keeps the same coaxial thrust-vectoring approach and rebuilds the electronics around a fully custom five-board avionics stack.
Avionics:
Powered by a 6S LiPo pack, this year's airframe carries a three-board custom flight stack: flight controller, ESC, and backplane, linked over a high-density board-to-board mezzanine. It is a ground-up, in-house build spanning propulsion, power electronics, RF, and sensor integration and protection systems, developed as a stepping stone toward more advanced actively-controlled vehicles.
Board Details:
LiDAR Breakout PCB
Status: Complete
A small breakout board carrying the VL53L4CX LiDAR for height sensing, split off the flight controller so it can be mounted for a clear downward view and wired back over a harness for easier assembly. Schematic and layout complete and design-reviewed.
USB-C PD Charger DFT PCB
Status: Schematic complete, Design reviewed
A self-contained buck-boost charger (1 to 14S, up to 90W) built around a TPS25751D USB-C PD controller and a BQ25756 buck-boost charger, with a BQ76942 for cell voltage and current monitoring, temperature monitoring, and passive balancing. It is designed to live inside the vehicle with only a USB-C port exposed on a panel, so the full pack charges in place without disassembly. The same board is a reusable charging subsystem, used across both TVR and UBC Rocket's COTS rocket. Planned additions: adjustable charge voltage and current, an OLED for live charging parameters, and common battery connectors (XT60, JST, DC jack).
Design review (round 1): Strengthened the I2C pull-ups after accounting for the longer bus length on PD Schematic. Change implemented
Flight Controller PCB
Status: Schematic in progress
The flagship board: a dual-core STM32H745 flight controller carrying the full sensor suite (RTK GNSS via U-BLOX ZED-F9P, UWB Interface, TTL for Dynamixel, FLASH, triple IMU, triple baro, magnetometer, and a custom 915 MHz telemetry radio (SX1262) for communication with GND Station. It connects to the LiDAR breakout over a harness and to the rest of the stack over the mezzanine backplane.
Schematic in progress: the IMU, baro, GNSS, flash, TTL, and interface sections are complete; the remaining sections and the RF front-end are in progress.
RF Telemetry Front-End (on the Flight Controller)
Status: Schematic in progress.
A 915 MHz telemetry front-end around the SX1262, with an external power amplifier (TRF37D73) and LC matching on both sides, a TX filter, an SPDT transmit/receive switch (SKY13370), and a 1:1 balun on the differential receive input. It adds a switched antenna-diversity stage: a second SPDT selecting between two pi-matched, TVS-protected 915 MHz antennas controlled by flight-controller running a antenna diversity algorithim.
ESC PCB
Status: Schematic in progress
A dual-channel custom ESC, 50A per channel (up to 12S), built around an STM32G071 running AM32 firmware: six-step commutation, bidirectional DShot with eRPM telemetry, dynamic dead-time and shoot-through protection, gate strong pull-downs against Miller-effect false turn-on, current and temperature monitoring with OCP and OTP, battery short-circuit protection, and battery current and SoC monitoring (BQ34Z100 fuel gauge).