Vibration-Isolating Platform for Multi-Rotor Aerial Vehicles

Ensuring the suitable performance of hardware on multirotor UAVs can prove challenging. Mechanical vibrations from motors and propellers are often some of the main causes of poor performance. Negative effects of vibration include blurry images from cameras, inertial sensor noise, structural fatigue, and damage to payload items. Often it is difficult to minimize the vibration disturbance effects for each unique vehicle as they have different mechanical dynamics. This paper addresses this problem of vibration and proposes a platform that allows for easy adjustment and tuning to achieve satisfactory attenuation of vibrations. Experiments were performed with different vibration attenuation configurations to find the best setup for a particular multirotor. A simple mathematical model was also used for theoretical validation of the experiments and to assist in the process of improving performance. Results from all vibration attenuation configurations are shown and discussed. In addition, as it is difficult to work on a multirotor with limited space to access electrical, mechanical, and structural components, this paper describes our process for designing and building a versatile payload platform with good performance and broad compatibility.