Vibration Damper Design and Additive Manufacturing for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

Abstract

The main focus of this study revolves around the problem of vibrations in unmanned aerial vehicles and aims to propose solutions using different designs of vibration dampers. Specifically, the study identifies the sources of vibrations in a Single Rotor Rotary Wing (Monocopter) type UAV. To assess the damping performance of the designed dampers, vibration tests were conducted in a controlled setup. Based on the measurement results obtained at three different speed stages, a particular damper, referred to as G2S2, exhibited the highest damping performance. At the first speed stage, it achieved damping percentages of 66% for the X-axis, 77% for the Y-axis, and 84% for the Z-axis. At the second speed stage, the percentages increased to 81% for the X-axis, 84% for the Y-axis, and 97% for the Z-axis. Finally, at the third speed stage, the damper demonstrated damping percentages of 85% for the X-axis, 84% for the Y-axis, and 98% for the Z-axis. This study successfully developed an experimental setup for measuring vibrations during UAV flight, particularly focusing on unmanned aerial vehicles. Furthermore, among the vibration dampers produced using additive manufacturing techniques, the damper with the highest performance, namely G2S2, was selected. Considering the measurement results, G2S2 emerged as the most effective vibration damper. It is worth mentioning that this damper can also be tested in real flight scenarios in the future, building upon the outcomes achieved through the experimental setup.