Affordable Data Collection System for UAVs Taxi Vibration Testing

2026-01-12

AI Summary

This study addresses the high cost and complexity of commercial high-performance measurement systems, which hinder the widespread adoption of structural vibration testing in small aircraft. To overcome these barriers, the authors propose and validate a low-cost, custom-developed multi-sensor acceleration acquisition system built around an OrangePi 3 LTS single-board computer and LSM6DS3TR-C MEMS inertial measurement units. Synchronized data acquisition at approximately 208 Hz is achieved via an I²C interface using a Python-based master–slave architecture, with the total system cost remaining below €600. Validation through taxiing and ambient vibration tests on a small fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle demonstrates consistent and repeatable power spectral density estimates—computed using Welch’s method—across multiple sensors. These results confirm the system’s reliability and practicality, substantially lowering both the technical and economic barriers to aerospace structural vibration testing.

Technology Category

• Machine Learning: Hardware-aware ML
• Planning, Routing, and Scheduling: Optimization of Spatio-temporal Systems
• Constraint Satisfaction and Optimization: Constraint Learning and Acquisition

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Web performance, measurement, and characterization
• Security and Privacy: Large-scale security measurements
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Web measurements

Abstract

Structural vibration testing plays a key role in aerospace engineering for evaluating dynamic behaviour, ensuring reliability and verifying structural integrity. These tests rely on accurate and robust data acquisition systems (DAQ) to capture high-quality acceleration data. However, commercial DAQs that provide the required performance and features are often expensive and complex, limiting their accessibility for small-scale research and experimental applications. This work presents the design and experimental validation of an affordable and in-house-developed acceleration DAQ, tested on a small fixed-wing UAV through several Taxi Vibration Test (TVT) runs and ambient vibration measurements. The proposed system integrates several OrangePi 3 LTS single-board computers with multiple LSM6DS3TR-C MEMS inertial measurement units operating simultaneously via an Inter-Integrated Circuit (I2C) communication interface, managed under a Python-based master/slave architecture. Data is acquired at a stable sampling rate of approximately 208 Hz and post-processed using Welch's method to estimate their Power Spectral Density (PSD). Results confirm the system ability to provide consistent multi-sensor acceleration data and repeatable PSD profiles under the same test conditions; thus, demonstrating its reliability. With a total hardware cost below 600 EUR (approximately 690 USD), the developed DAQ offers a compact, scalable and cost-effective alternative for aerospace vibration analysis and structural testing.

Problem

• vibration testing
• data acquisition system
• UAV
• structural integrity
• affordable

Innovation

• affordable DAQ
• UAV vibration testing
• MEMS inertial sensors
• multi-sensor synchronization
• Python-based data acquisition