Design and Testing of Dual Payload Gymbal Camera for UAV

Abstract

Gymbal Camera known as the most famous payload for surveillance aerial vehicle. The first development of this gymbal camera system, was for military application, especially to surveillance for search and rescue operation. Now, this gymbal camera system have been widely used for commercial application. This paper will describe the design and testing of the dual payload gymbal camera. Dual payload idea is based on the needs of combination high resolution still camera and fast moving camera. This combination payload very useful for widely UAV operating system. Almost the material that has been applied on this design, dominated by carbon composite. This material promises some advantages especially on aerospace technology. There are 2 main testing methods that had been conducted to this system. The first is to testing the motion control performance due to some control algorithm candidate for this system. Each axis motion of this gymbal camera has supported by 2 independent high precision DC motor and optical encoder. And the second testing is based on the optical performance. Some pattern had frequently be identified and captured by the camera. The quality and repeatability proceed by some third party software to calculated error and performance for each capture and then compare all of its data.