On the dynamics and breakup of quadcopters using a discrete element method framework

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), in particular quadcopters, have become extremely prevalent, driven by their low cost and ease of control. Unfortunately, privacy concerns related to the ubiquity of UAVs have prompted substantial citizen interest in the shooting down of UAVs that trespass onto their property, although the legality thereof is unclear. In this work, the dynamical response of a quadcopter to a series of randomly external impulses, which could be generated by objects launched toward the UAV, such shotgun pellets, etc., is formulated. A Discrete Element Method (DEM) is developed to describe the breakup of the quadcopter, in conjunction with a staggered implicit time-stepping scheme. The use of DEM allows for fragmentation of the quadcopter and also to compute the trajectories and distribution of the resulting debris field.