Enhancing IMU Accuracy in MRAVs: A Theoretical and Experimental Approach to Vibration Damping

This paper analyses the problem of mechanical vibrations on Flight Controllers (FCs) of Multi-Rotor Aerial Vehicles (MRAVs) and proposes solutions based on vibration theory. First, we analyze the raw Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) data obtained from real flights to understand the dynamical characteristics of a baseline damping configuration. We confirm that the motor-propeller units are the main source of vibration in these systems. We then develop two models used to understand how to effectively damp vibrations on IMU. We improve the baseline configuration using commonly available components placed according to a theoretical analysis and we discuss the experimental results. The new damping configuration greatly decreases the amplitude of vibrations on acceleration and angular velocity measurements.