Ground Risk Assessment for Long-Range Inspection Missions of Railways by UAVs

This paper investigates the feasibility of a long-range inspection mission of railways by UAVs from a risk point of view. Ground risk for population of inhabited areas is assessed for such a mission and compared to the ones of shorter "elementary" flights for which flight authorizations have already been obtained or would be easy to obtain. By this comparative approach, the feasibility of the full inspection mission can be investigated without too much sensitivity to input data and model parameters. Use of an emergency parachute is also investigated as a potential risk mitigation procedure. Risk evaluation models as well as developed metrics for risk analysis are presented in the paper. Results of risk numerical assessment and comparison are presented for the cases with and without an emergency parachute.