A Cost-Effective Solution for Measuring Vibration and Impact on Small Twin Engine Electric Fixed Wing UAV

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have gained widespread popularity in various
fields, leading to a demand for reliable and cost-effective measurement systems to ensure the safe
and efficient operation of these UAVs. One of the vital aspects to ensure the UAV safe operation is
the vibration information that occurs during the flight to detect anomalies that may be caused by
failures or other factors. At the operational aspect, the vibration data that recorded during the flight
test can be used to design the damper system to minimize the vibration effect during the aerial
photography mission. This research proposes a low-cost vibration and impact measurement system
for small electric fixed-wing UAVs. The system utilizes accelerometers to measure the vibration and
impact levels experienced by the aircraft during flight. We designed and tested the system on a small
electric fixed-wing UAV and compared its results with a commercial measurement system. This
allows us to evaluate the accuracy and reliability. The experimental results demonstrated that our
system can accurately measure the vibration and impact levels experienced by small electric fixed
wing UAVs during flight. Furthermore, our system was found to be reliable and cost-effective
compared to the commercial measurement system with differences in vibration measurement in the
range of 10% with some parameters even below 6%, impact measurement in the range of 2-4%, and
the total cost amounts of the component is USD 62.84. This research provides a low-cost solution
for monitoring vibration and impact levels of small electric fixed-wing UAVs.