Modelling and Analysis of Vibrations in a UAV Helicopter with a Vision System Regular Paper

The analysis of the nature and damping of unwanted vibrations on Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) helicopters are important tasks when images from on-board vision systems are to be obtained. In this article, the authors model a UAV system, generate a range of vibrations originating in the main rotor and design a control methodology in order to damp these vibrations. The UAV is modelled using VehicleSim, the vibrations that appear on the fuselage are analysed to study their effects on the on-board vision system by using Simmechanics software. Following this, the authors present a control method based on an Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) to achieve satisfactory damping results over the vision system on board.