Researchers recorded the sounds drones make with chipped or cracked propellers and failing motors. Their aim is to let a ground station flag a drone as unairworthy before takeoff.
Engineers at the University of Cincinnati are using sound to help NASA detect damaged drone motors and propellers before a crash occurs. Prissha Chawla, a doctoral student in the UC College of Engineering and Applied Science, and her research partners recorded the sounds drones produce when propellers become chipped or cracked or when a motor is damaged or begins to fail. The team then converted those recordings into data that ground station computers can use to alert operators when a drone is not airworthy before it takes off.
The students will present the project at the Modelling, Estimation and Control Conference on October 25 in Phoenix.
“The project started in 2024 with interest by NASA in detecting problems with motors before a drone took off,” Chawla said. “More and more, drones are being used for public safety. You don’t want them to crash.”
How acoustic drone damage detection works
The current work focuses on the ground. “We’re focusing on pre-flight tests that NASA already runs,” Chawla said.
Besides chips and cracks in propellers, Chawla said, grit and other debris can get into motor bearings and cause a motor to seize. Acoustic drone damage detection aims to catch those mechanical faults through changes in the sound a drone makes, rather than through visual inspection alone.
Eventually, the students envision an autonomous drone that relies on sound alone to detect damage to its propellers and other mechanical systems during flight. Such a drone could then return to base before a catastrophic failure.
Preflight checks for drone-in-a-box systems
UC student Luke Busse said the damage-detection system could become a feature of fully autonomous drone-in-a-box systems. In those setups, drones deploy from a weatherproof docking station that handles launch, landing, charging, data upload and mission scheduling without an on-site operator.
“In that scenario, it would be great. You could have sensors in the box that provide preflight checks,” Busse said.
More information is available at the University of Cincinnati College of Engineering and Applied Science.
