Trajectory Management of the Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) in Emergency Situation

Unmanned aircraft must be characterized by a level of safety, similar to that of manned aircraft, when performing flights over densely populated areas. Dangerous situations or emergencies are frequently connected with the necessity to change the profiles and parameters of a flight as well as the flight plans. The aim of this work is to present the methods used to determine an Unmanned Aircraft System’s (UAS) flight profile after a dangerous situation or emergency occurs. The analysis was limited to the possibility of an engine system emergency and further flight continuing along a trajectory of which the shape depends on the type of the emergency. The suggested method also enables the determination of an optimal flying trajectory, based on the territory of a special protection zone (for example, large populated areas), in the case of an emergency that would disable continuation of the performed task. The method used in this work allows researchers, in a simplified way, to solve a variation task using the Ritz–Galerkin method, consisting of an approximate solution of the boundary value problem to determine the optimal flight path. The worked out method can become an element of the on-board system supporting UAS flight control