Issue 45 | Uncrewed Systems Technology Aug/Sept 2022 Tidewie USV Tupan | Performance monitoring | Bayonet 350 | UAVs insight | Xponential 2022 | ULPower UL350i and UL350iHPS | Elroy Air Chaparral | Gimbals | Clogworks Dark Matter

99 then make it a straightforward and logical process to select components for power, housings, glass, motion control, data processing and so on. Also, a bespoke modification of an existing high-end gimbal can now be prototyped within 3 or 4 weeks of the initial request, without the need for any in-house metal-cutting or fabrication, making these sophisticated and expensive systems some of the quickest to turn around relative to their complexity. A key reason for the minimal changes in design software is that most gimbal companies take a hands-on approach to development, preferring to run just a few high-level simulations of new architectures before moving quickly to real-world testing and iteration of prototypes, and the more tangible and trustworthy data that brings. That said, testing practices have also not undergone any major changes, given that certification requirements and demands vary from one customer to the next, and that most military-standard and other regulation-specified tests are carried out by certified third-party facilities. Gimbal suppliers wishing to go the extra mile though will use their own vibration tables and environmental chambers to benchmarks in excess of targets required for certification. Notably, some companies are trialling their gimbals’ capabilities in stabilisation, pointing, tracking, zooming and so on by wheeling or flying them within sight of well-known landmarks and other visual markers in their local areas. Such tests have the advantage of being easy to control. A UGV or UAV test platform can be pre-programmed to repeat the same route of waypoints and transit speeds over and again. Test engineers can also select days of similar weather patterns, to ensure different gimbal configurations have the conditions to produce data of similar clarity. The video and imagery captured from each test can then be compared side by side or overlaid onto each other (or with other reference imagery and charts). That helps identify exactly where data quality is being gained or lost, and investigate which hardware or software modules ought to be fine-tuned, or the impact that differences in weather or other conditions have. It is also becoming more common for gimbal manufacturers to reach out to customers for beta testing, sending their newest models or upgrade kits to trial how they can be used (or broken) on different missions and vehicles. This can include virtual or bench tests to validate key operational parameters such as slew rates before integration onto a vehicle, to ensure it is safe and worth attempting the kinds of live tests that can cause significant shock to gimbals with below- par capabilities. Professional cinematographers for instance routinely conduct filming work using uniquely dynamic manoeuvres and peculiar varieties (or even the absence) of vibration isolators between gimbal and platform. It can be difficult for gimbal manufacturers to anticipate exactly how such users will be using their gimbals, so the beta testing approach can be useful before commercially releasing a new model. One parameter that high-end gimbal developers have a particular focus on is the balancing of their systems, often seeing it as a gimbal’s most mission-critical quality. Having a well- balanced gimbal makes an enormous difference in terms of stabilisation, power consumption, pointing, motor heat output and essentially all the other areas affecting performance. Although they have their limitations, CAD tools can actually be highly useful in simulating the balance across a gimbal (and approximating its centre of balance, or CoB) so long as each sub-component has been thoroughly defined in terms of its own weight and CoB. After that, prototype balance tests can be run in similar ways to how car wheels Gimbals | Focus Uncrewed Systems Technology | August/September 2022 High-end gimbals are increasingly run through extreme temperature and vibration tests in excess of certification requirements (Courtesy of DST Control)