Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Experimental Characterization in Controlled Extreme Environmental Conditions

The employment of drones in extremely harsh environmental conditions is the main challenge of flight operations in the Alpine scenario. Characterizing the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) performance in a controlled simulated environment is crucial to defining the atmospheric condition limits for safe operations. Following the experiments performed previously in the same project, we performed a series of tests at different simulated altitudes (from ground level up to 9000 m) and with different payloads (from 0 kg up to 4 kg) assessing the efficiency of the drones. The test campaign performed in a simulated standard Alpine mountain context led to define the boundaries for planning a safe flight in a such harsh and challenging environment.