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This study proposes a new method for reducing the shock vibration response of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) during the landing process by means of the momentum exchange principle (MEID). The performance of the impact damper is improved by adding a pre-straining spring to the damper system. This research discusses the theoretical application of the damper to the UAV landing gear system. The UAV dynamics is first modeled as a simple lumped mass translational vibration system. Then we analyze a more complex two-dimensional model of UAV dynamics. This model consists of the main wheel, nose wheel and main body. Three cases of UAV landing gear mechanisms: without damper, with passive MEID (PMEID) and with pre-straining spring MEID (PSMEID) are simulated. The damper performance is evaluated from the maximum acceleration and force transmission to the main body. The energy balance calculation is conducted to investigate the performance of PSMEID. The simulation results show that the proposed PSMEID method is the most effective method for reducing the maximum acceleration and force transmission of UAV during impact landing.

In the authors’ previous study, we proposed a novel shock vibration control method using the active momentum exchange impact damper (AMEID). By using this method, the shock vibration of the vibratory system is greatly reduced by transferring part of its momentum to the damper mass. This feature is effective for suppressing the first large peak value of the acceleration response due to a shock load. However, the validity of AMEID for actual implementations has not yet been investigated. In this paper, the active control of shock vibration using AMEID under real conditions is evaluated by simulation and experiment. A one-degree-of-freedom vibratory system is used as the controlled object. The controller is designed using the linear quadratic regulator optimal control theory. Reductions in the acceleration response and transmitted force to the base are investigated using simulations. Experiments are carried out to verify the simulation results.