Quantitative Approach and Departure Risk Assessment for Unmanned Aerial Systems

As the use of Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) becomes more common in both civilian/commercial and military applications, so too has the risk of injury to individuals and third parties on the ground. The purpose of this research is to further enhance methods currently in use for performing flight path risk assessment for UAS, as well as improve upon an existing software tool: Quantitative Approach and Departure Risk Assessment (QUADRA). The primary focus is upon the incorporation of building information to determine the protection offered to sheltered populations, reevaluate the probability of fatality models used in aircraft failures to more accurately determine the risk for smaller UAS systems, and to provide a metric for determining the number of individuals that are adversely affected by the noise of the autonomous system as it performs its mission.