Making the Drones Safer and Human-Friendly

The drone is an unpiloted aircraft or spacecraft that is also called “unmanned aerial vehicle” or UAV. These kind of aircrafts are mostly used for package delivery, public safety, and traffic management purposes. At present many industries are very eager to avail the service of these aircrafts for performing many activities. But it is suggested that it is also essential to understand and analyze the injuries these aircraft could potentially cause, the limitations areas of these aircrafts. This is the high time to have specific regulations to regulate and guide the crafts, so that they can be used safely and the expected injuries could be avoided. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations currently prohibit UAV operations over people without robust experimental data. Virginia Tech's injury biomechanics group has tried to remove these possible errors and published their first peer-reviewed academic study to offer quantitative data on injury risk associated with expected drone-human association. The dummy test was done on three types of drone aircraft whose head and neck contained sensors to measure acceleration and force or any hit. The forces were evaluated to understand the gravity of potentially severe or life-threatening injuries like skull fractures. The result suggests that small drones are safer than big ones. It was found that where the aircraft was deflected away from the body by a protruding rotor arm, the injury was reduced. It is concluded that there must be comprehensive testing, especially considering the range of shapes, sizes, and materials.

 By: Anita Aishvarya

Content: www.sciencedaily.com