Multibody system modelling of unmanned aircraft system collisions with the human head

Understanding the impact severity of unmanned aircraft system (UAS) collisions with the human body remains a challenge and is essential to the development of safe UAS operations. Complementary to performing experiments of UAS collisions with a crash dummy, a computational impact model is needed in order to capture the large variety of UAS types and impact scenarios. This article presents the development of a multibody system (MBS) model of a collision of one specific UAS type with the human body as well with a crash dummy. This specific UAS type has been chosen because data from experimental drop tests on a crash dummy is available. This allows the validation of the MBS model of UAS impacting a crash dummy versus experimental data. The validation shows that the MBS model closely matches experimental UAS drop tests on a crash dummy. Subsequently, the validated UAS MBS model is applied to predict human body injury using a biomechanical human body model. Head and neck injury from the frontal, side and rear impact on the human head are predicted at various elevation angles and impact velocities. The results show that neck injury is not a concern for this specific UAS type, but a serious head injury is probable.