Is This the World’s Smallest 4K FPV Drone?

German hacker FPV Geek has been building DIY drones for years. Thinking back on all of his past designs, FPV Geek started to wonder just how small a first-person view (FPV) drone could get before it would start to ruin the video footage it captures. This is more than just a curiosity, of course. Smaller drones can fit into tighter spaces than their larger counterparts, and they also require less energy for flight, which is a huge concern in this space.

Rather than just wonder, FPV Geek did some experimentation. He started by getting together the absolute smallest versions of the bare-minimum required components that he could find. This included a Matrix 1S Brushless Flight Controller, a set of four BetaFPV 0702 II 30000 KV Brushless Motors, a DJI O4 video transmitter, a BetaFPV 300mAh 1S BT2.0 battery, and Gemfan 31mm 1209-4 1mm propellers.

A 3D-printed frame was designed, along with a custom PCB to hook the components together. It was quickly discovered that since the motors were pulled in so close to the center to save space, the air they pushed down would mostly hit the PCB and other hardware components. To avoid this problem, the drone was redesigned to have the propellers on the bottom in a pusher configuration.

That was a step in the right direction, but there was still another problem. The motors were so close together that the propellers would come into contact with one another during flight. To get around this issue, small 3D-printed spacers were installed above two of the motors. This introduced a small offset in their heights, preventing them from colliding during flight.

FPV Geek believes that his drone is the smallest 4K FPV drone ever built, but these things are very difficult to conclusively prove. In any case, the drone performs very well in real-world tests and captures excellent quality video. I’d count that as a huge success whether it is the smallest ever or not.