Seminario "Risk Assessment and Mission Planning for UAS Specific Operations over Populated Areas" prof. Giulio Avanzini, Università del Salento

Abstract. A procedure for evaluating the risk related to the use of Unmanned Aerial Systems over populated areas is proposed. A nominal trajectory, planned for performing a given mission, is represented by means of motion primitives, that is, segments and arcs flown in a steady state condition. The risk of hitting a person on the ground after catastrophic failure is evaluated as a function of vehicle reliability and population density (assumed known), and position of the impact point (which depends on initial conditions at the time of failure and trajectory flown afterwards). In the deterministic case, a lethal area is introduced and the risk at each point on the ground is proportional to the amount of time spent by the point inside the lethal area, that is, the area around the impact point where the presence of one or more persons results into a casualty. Under the assumption of a ballistic fall, the position of the lethal area with respect to the nominal trajectory depends only on altitude and velocity at the time of failure. When the effect of navigation errors is introduced, impact points are described by a statistical impact footprint, assuming that position and velocity errors at time of failure are normally distributed with known standard deviations. The two approaches are compared for a fictitious, yet realistic, mission scenario. Constant reference to regulatory issues will be provided, in order to outline a possible scheme for enforcing prescribed (and socially acceptable) risk levels related with the use of unmanned vehicles over populated areas. This will also help in outlining open problems and understand the complexity and the responsibility in finding a reasonable and reliable solution to this challenging operational scenario.

Giulio Avanzini is Professor in Flight Mechanics at the Università del Salento. He obtained a degree in Aeronautical Engineering in 1993 and a Ph.D. in Applied Mechanics in 1997 from the University of Rome. After spending one year as research staff at the Italian Ship Model Basin, he became assistant professor at Politecnico di Torino in 1998, with teaching duties in atmospheric and space flight mechanics. He moved to Università del Salento in 2011, where he currently teaches Flight Mechanics and Aircraft Design. He was visiting professor at the University of Glasgow and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, teaching classes in spaceflight dynamics and dynamics of flexible aircraft. His research interests span various fields of atmospheric and space flight dynamics, simulation and control, including application of nonlinear methods to the analysis of fixed-wing aircraft dynamics; inverse simulation of aircraft motion; rotorcraft simulation and control; autonomous flight; spacecraft attitude dynamics and control (especially when featuring control moment gyroscopes and magnetorquers as attitude effectors); satellite formation flying (with a focus on tethered formations). He provided contributions in modelling, design, and control of innovative unmanned flying vehicle configurations and electric and hybrid-electric aircraft and rotorcraft. In the framework of fundamental problems in Astrodynamics, he derived a solution method for the orbital two-point boundary value problem (Lambert’s Problem) in terms of classic orbit parameters. He was appointed the Derek George Astridge Memorial Prize in Aviation Safety in 2018.

Per informazioni, contattare il prof. Giorgio Guglieri giorgio.guglieri@polito.it