Monitoring of oil and gas pipelines using an unmanned aerial vehicle with reduced vibration of drive electric motors through the use of a damper with a cellular structure

Relevance. This article examines the pressing issue of reducing vibration activity onboard unmanned aerial vehicle-based oil and gas pipeline monitoring devices. Unmanned aerial vehicle onboard equipment, particularly optical instruments used for photography and videography, is susceptible to vibration from electric motors. This vibration degrades the quality of the resulting images. An assessment of the vibration activity of electric motors reveals that the sources of vibration have various physical origins: imbalances, electromagnetic phenomena, ball bearing errors, manufacturing defects in structural components, and assembly quality. Since completely eliminating the vibration activity of electric motors is technically impossible, it is advisable to reduce it through a technical solution by introducing a damping element into the kinematic chain of the vibration source. Specifically, a damper design based on a cellular structure is proposed to minimize the impact of vibration from electric motors. A study of the effectiveness of the developed damper prototype was conducted using laser Doppler vibrometry, a method that has been rapidly developing over the past decade. The equipment allowed for contactless recording of vibrations on the surface of vibrating components, which is essential for non-destructive testing of structures. The study demonstrated that different cellular structures of the damper body have different effects on its effectiveness. The damper, based on a "cross-shaped" cellular structure, reduced the vibration level emitted by the electric motor by 53%, confirming its suitability for this study. Object. Cellular damper manufactured using additive manufacturing. Aim. To develop a design for a damper prototype with a cellular structure and evaluate the effectiveness of its application for reducing vibration activity on board a device for monitoring oil and gas pipelines. Methods. Modern vibration diagnostics approaches, computational mathematics methods, and modern vibration measurement tools. Results. The developed damper minimizes the vibration amplitude level by 53% in the range of operating speeds of the electric motor shaft. For citation: Ermakov D.V., Derusova D.A., Shpilnoy V.Yu., Gavrilin A.N., Lee A.P. Monitoring of oil and gas pipelines using an unmanned aerial vehicle with reduced vibration of drive electric motors through the use of a damper with a cellular structure. Bulletin of the Tomsk Polytechnic University. Geo Assets Engineering, 2026, vol. 337, no. 7, pp. 198-207. https://doi.org/10.18799/24131830/2026/7/5638