Methodology for Determining the Probability of Damage to UAV as a Result of Exposure to Atmospheric Environmental Factors

Introduction. For the effective use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), it is required to take into account the impact of atmospheric environmental factors. Based on the existing level of development of the research and methodological apparatus, it is impossible to determine the probability of damage to the UAV under the conditions of complex exposure to atmospheric environmental factors and to assess the feasibility of further performance of the flight task. Violation of the UAV operation process is caused by the influence of atmospheric precipitation, wind and temperature conditions of the environment. The work aims at the development of a methodology for determining the probability of damage to UAV as a result of exposure to atmospheric environmental factors, as well as to evaluate the performance of the software package implementing the developed algorithm using triangular, trapezoidal, pentagonal, and Gaussian membership functions. Materials and Methods. A technique is proposed that makes it possible, using the theory of fuzzy logic, to determine the probability of damage to the UAV with inaccuracies and uncertainties in the description of atmospheric effects of the environment. It takes into account possible atmospheric forcing and enables to determine the probability of damage to the UAV under various atmospheric influences. The computational complexity of the algorithm implementing the technique depends significantly on the number of qualitative assessments of atmospheric impacts on UAV. Results. A method for determining the probability of damage to UAV as a result of exposure to atmospheric environmental factors based on fuzzy sets (triangular, trapezoidal, pentagonal, Gaussian) was proposed and tested. The use of fuzzy sets for estimating the conditions of the UAV application environment was described. An algorithm was developed to determine the probability of damage to the UAV as a result of exposure to atmospheric environmental factors. A computational experiment was carried out to determine the complexity of calculating the probability of UAV damage as a result of atmospheric forcing under various environmental conditions: «moderate conditions» at a wind speed of 3 m/s, precipitation intensity of 0.8 mm/h, and air temperature of 5 °C; «very heavy conditions» of the external environment at a wind speed of 12 m/s, precipitation intensity 3.5 mm/h, and air temperature of –6 ºС. It was established that the use of triangular membership functions to calculate the probability of damage to the UAV as a result of atmospheric forcing provided higher performance compared to the rest ones (trapezoidal, pentagonal, Gaussian). Discussion and Conclusions. The values of the UAV damage probabilities obtained during the implementation of the methodology under atmospheric environmental influences can be used at the pre-flight preparation stage and during the flight to assess the feasibility of further performance of the flight task. Based on the analysis of the application of the considered forms of membership functions, recommendations for their application are given. The use of algorithms with triangular membership functions will provide high performance of UAV control systems (UAV CS).