Survivability Modelling for Unmanned Air System Design

Abstract

Survivability analyses need to be implemented as early as from the first stages of conceptual design of military Unmanned Air Systems (UAS) as their cost increases with their associated technology becoming more and more advanced. Apart from their impact on operations, the UAS survivability related losses get their significant share on lifecycle cost. The development of reliable survivability models is imperative to obtain accurate estimates of aircraft losses and their cost. In this paper, such survivability models are developed based on previous simulations using historic data from similar military Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAV’s), after being adjusted to the specific configuration. Thus, the survivability related cost computed is included in the total lifecycle cost from the early stages of the conceptual design, along with the other acquisition and maintenance related cost models, to identify the optimal design with the minimum total lifecycle cost.