Simulations of airborne collisions between drones and an aircraft windshield

Drones are a considerable thread to the safe operation of transport aircraft with the wide application and development trend of drones. The airborne collision safety between the windshield of transport aircraft and the five light unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAVs) under various possible flight conditions is mainly studied in this paper. The collision simulation model of drone and aircraft windshield is established under PAM-CRASH software environment, which is used to simulate the dynamic response and damage of the windshield after the impact of drone and aircraft windshield under various conditions. The simulation results with that of collision test between whole-level drones and a full-scale aircraft with windshield is compared and analyzed to verify the validity of the simulation. The drone with similar bird mass is also selected to verify the appropriateness of the airworthiness rules of the windshield structure against bird impact to light UAV. The influencing parameters are important to the research results and are taken into a little consideration in the study. The research shows that the configuration, material, weight, speed and attitude of drones all have significant effects on the impact damage to the aircraft windshield, and a “parallel” attitude of a 1360 g drone which was proven to be a very severe gesture resulted in an unairworthy consequence at an impact velocity of 154.8 m/s. The windshield damage from a 1360 g drone strike is much heavier than that from a bird of a little big mass. It is expected that the high fidelity simulation model can be used to simulate all kinds of working conditions, reduce the test times, and save a lot of economic costs and provide credible technical support and basis for the airworthiness authorities to formulate precise and convincing regulatory regulations in future.