CAD Engineer for Drone Payload V2 Design Refinement

Posted 4 days ago

Only freelancers located in the U.S. may apply.U.S. located freelancers only

Summary

I’m looking for an experienced CAD/mechanical design engineer to help refine a V2 design for a compact drone-mounted sensor payload. I already have a base design and clear feedback for the next revision. The overall design changes should be relatively minimal, but I need someone who can carefully update the CAD and validate a few critical mechanical/optical constraints. The payload involves a fixed camera and a rotating scan-head assembly used to redirect the sensor’s field of view. The goal of this V2 pass is to improve the design for weight, balance, sensor field-of-view coverage, and drone integration. Primary responsibilities: • Review the existing/base CAD design • Implement V2 design feedback and requested mechanical tweaks • Ensure the payload has a balanced center of gravity suitable for drone mounting • Use CAD and/or simulation tools to evaluate balance, mass distribution, and rotation stability • Accurately model/project the camera sensor’s field of view through the scan-head geometry • Check for field-of-view clipping, vignetting, or mechanical interference Required experience: • Strong CAD experience, ideally Fusion 360, SolidWorks, Onshape, or similar • Mechanical design experience with small assemblies • Ability to evaluate center of gravity, mass properties, and balance • Ability to model or simulate sensor field-of-view geometry • Comfortable working from an existing design rather than starting from scratch • Able to move quickly and communicate clearly Huge plus if you have experience with: • Drone payloads or UAV-mounted hardware • Lightweight mechanical design • Rotating assemblies • Optical/sensor field-of-view modeling • Cameras or imaging payloads • Electrical engineering or basic electronics integration • 3D printing / prototype-ready mechanical design Also bonus if you live in or near Southern Utah (where I'm located). Timeline: I’m looking for a quick turnaround and will hire immediately. Since this is a V2 refinement based on an existing design, I’d ideally like the updated design returned in under one week. Confidentiality / ownership: This project is confidential. All concepts, ideas, designs, CAD files, improvements, and related work product will be owned by me/my company. By accepting the job, you agree not to share, reuse, publish, or disclose any project details, files, or designs without written permission. Please include examples of relevant CAD/mechanical design work, especially anything involving drones, lightweight payloads, rotating assemblies, or sensor/optical field-of-view modeling.

  • Less than 30 hrs/week
    Hourly
  • < 1 month
    Duration
  • Expert
    Experience Level
  • $40.00

    -

    $70.00

    Hourly
  • Remote Job
  • One-time project
    Project Type

Contract-to-hire opportunity

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Skills and Expertise
Mandatory skills
Autodesk AutoCAD
Mechanical Engineering
Activity on this job
  • Proposals:10 to 15
  • Last viewed by client:yesterday
  • Interviewing:
    2
  • Invites sent:
    2
  • Unanswered invites:
    0
About the client
Member since Feb 13, 2023
  • United States
    Branson3:33 AM
  • $8.6K total spent
    19 hires, 8 active
  • 89 hours

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