Evaluation of Increase Weight in a Wing Fixed Leading Edge Design to Support UAS Impact

Abstract

In recent years, the number of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) operating in the sky of urban centres has quite increased due to the facilities to purchase this type of vehicle. Consequently, the risk of an airborne impact between these vehicles and manned aircrafts has been target of concern with incidents been reported recently. Although the current aircrafts had been designed to support bird strikes, a collision with an UAS could be more critical, as reported in a study published by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2016. In the present paper, a commercial aircraft Wing Fixed Leading Edge (WFLE) was first designed to support a bird strike. Then, its skin and spar thicknesses were increased so the WFLE could withstand an impact with an UAS. The safety criterion adopted was that the lithium-ion battery from the UAS could not penetrate into the airframe when the impact occurs at the airliner cruising speed. Finally, the weight from both WFLE configurations were compared so the mass increase could be quantified. During simulation, the same mass was considered for the UAS and the bird, although they were modelled using different materials. Modelling procedures were verified with test data found in other papers and the results obtained presented acceptable correlation. The UAS considered was a quadcopter configuration intended for recreational and commercial aerial photography with a 1.8 kg mass. The results showed that spar thicknesses increase were more effective than increases in the skin thicknesses.In addition to the troubles caused on airports, mid-air impacts between UAS and aircrafts has possibly occurred in the United Kingdom [3], Canada and, more recently, in Mexico.Sharma [2] has performed an investigation into UAS incidents considering reports released by the FAA and the NASA. The results have shown an increase in the number of occurrences, as indicated in tab.1.

Predicting Helicopter Damage Caused by a Collision with an Unmanned Aerial System Using Explicit Finite Element Analysis

“…The CAD model geometry as well as the FE mesh of the camera gimbal are presented in Figure 4.7. Drumond, Greco, and Cimini (2019) investigated that the DJI Phantom III battery, motors, and camera were the most critical parts during an impact. Considering that the structure of these parts was of a bulk type, 3D solid elements were selected for these components.…”

“…The camera gimbal was also a bulk type part, therefore requiring 3D solid elements. However, this part was not considered a critical component by Drumond, Greco, and Cimini (2019). Therefore, constant stress solid elements with formulation type 1 was selected to represent this component.…”

“…In the research of Drumond, Greco, and Cimini (2019) and of Olivares et al (2017), it was identified that the critical components of the UAS were the motors, the battery, and the camera. Therefore in the research of the latter, these components were selected to perform ballistic tests for validation purposes.…”

“…with the camera pointing towards the target. As analysed in Drumond, Greco, and Cimini (2019), the critical components of the UAS are the motors, battery, and camera. Of these critical components, the two left hand side motors as well as the two right hand side motors of the UAS line up during an impact with the UAS oriented in its forward flying direction (0 • orientation).…”

“…The critical components of a UAS are the battery, motor, and camera as for example analysed byDrumond, Greco, and Cimini (2019) Olivares et al (2017). performed a number of tests impacting these critical components of the DJI Phantom III onto a flat aluminium plate.…”