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The existing damping system of the unmanned aerial vehicle used a constant damper, whose settling time was not effective as expected and the system was not critically damped. In the new damper, the piston of the oleo pneumatic strut includes a tapered metering pin. Therefore, as the piston moves, the area of the orifice changes due to the tapered pin resulting in a controlled fluid flow in the system.

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A mathematical model was implemented in MATLAB, calculating the variable damping coefficients and  flow rate of the system. A one dimensional replicate of the current system was simulated in Abaqus and the results of the new system were compared with the older model. ​

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