A Review of the Vibration Environment Onboard Small Unmanned Aircraft

A review of the vibration environment onboard multiple popular small unmanned aircraft is presented. The use of small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) or drones for surveillance and image collection is becoming ever more popular. To increase the performance of the imaging systems, vibration isolation and absorption systems are needed. For the effective design of these systems accurate data on the vibrational environment of the host aircraft is essential. This review provides the data experimentally acquired from multiple airframes that are used commonly in the UAS community. Both multi-rotor and fixed wing airframes are examined for the study. The data is obtained from aircraft fully powered and airborne in a hovering or level flight configuration. This will provide payload and image system developer the information required for choosing the correct aircraft for the mission as well as the design of vibration control.