Study and suppression of vibrations in rotary-wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

This document contains the details of the thesis titled Study and suppression of vibrations in rotary-wing Uumanned Aerial Vehicles, which focuses on the study of vibrations of the so called quadrotors, which are formed by four rotors equispaced around a central structure. Due to the morphological characteristics of the quadrotors, they present high manoeuvrability and better payload than other rotary-wing UAV configurations, reason why their use and study has increased in the last past years. Because quadrotors are unmanned vehicles, very often autonomous, they rely completely on the information they receive from the available sensors, and therefore, their performance should be improved as much as possible. It is then necessary to keep the undesirable vehicle's oscillations to the minimum as the measurement systems can obtain better readings, reducing the need for data processing, this is, reducing the energy consumption and increasing the vehicle's autonomy. To reduce vibrations appearance and isolate their transmission, it is essential to deeply understand the mechanisms associated to the appearance and transmission of the oscillations in the vehicle, originated both from the external environment and from the vehicle itself. In order to do so, an extensive study of the vehicle's vibrational behaviour has been carried out here. The main sources of vibrations have been identified and effective solutions have been proposed for the reduction of the oscillations production and transmission, as an appropriate selection of materials and a predictor-corrector control methodology. Also the effect of rotor defects on the vehicle behaviour has been studied, and software and hardware modifications have been designed and implemented in the model in order to improve the vehicle performance, even in presence of rotor severe structural damage.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

City, University of London

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Martinez Estelles, Sylvia

• TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
• TL Motor vehicles. Aeronautics. Astronautics