Vibration measurement on mini helicopter for electro-optic payload integration

Autonomous mini helicopters are gaining popularity towards crowd monitoring, disaster management, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. This is due to its advantage of vertical take-off and landing along with electro-optic payload carrying capability. The present work is a technology demonstrator project wherein a radio controlled mini helicopter is being converted into autonomous mini helicopter with objective of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance. Most of these mini helicopters are fitted with a small two stroke piston engine to generate torque for rotating main rotor and tail rotor. The engine and rotor blades are the major sources of mechanical, aerodynamic and acoustic vibrations in the airframe. In the present paper vibrations are measured and analyzed at different locations on the airframe from the vibration isolation point of view. The main objectives of this work are to capture the baseline vibration profile of helicopter and to study the effectiveness of the passive vibration isolators in achieving stabilized video from the electro-optic (EO) payload integrated to mini helicopter.