Modelling collisionconsequences of unmanned aircraftsystems on human

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Abstract

Unmanned aircraft system (UAS) is an emerging technology that is now gaining traction around the world. UAS operations are expected to be integrated into very-low-level rural and urban airspace via the enabling of the novel concept of unmanned traffic system (UTM). For such operations to become a reality, one of the major challenges that needs to be overcome is the assessment and, subsequently, mitigation of safety risk posed to third parties on the ground.
Third parties on the ground refer to people or pedestrians that resides within the area of operation but are not involved with the operation. To assess this risk, an approach called third-party risk (TPR) assessment has been developed in many research. Prediction of TPR of UAS operations will allow operators, authorities and stakeholders make well-informed decision on the deployment of UAS operations. If the TPR risk level of the designed operational concept exceeds the acceptable risk level, then risk mitigation can then be applied.
In a typical TPR model, one of the important sub-models is the collision consequence model used to predict probability of fatality (PoF) of human subjected to UAS collision. This sub-component requires a good understanding of human fatality due to inflicted injury by UAS collision which is, at this time of writing, still under-studied.
This thesis addresses the key component of the TPR framework that is the quantification of UAS collision consequence on human on the ground. The central aim of this thesis is to develop a quantitative, model-based collision consequence model of UAS collision on human. To achieve this main aim, a series of interrelated research studies was performed in a systematic way.