A Hierarchical Quantitative Risk Assessment Framework for Evaluating Performance and Resilience in Drone-Assisted Systems

Rapid integration of UAVs into multiple sectors involving military, commercial, and civilian applications introduces new operational capabilities but also raises critical safety, reliability and resilience challenges. This paper presents a quantitative risk assessment approach for evaluating the performance and resilience of drone-assisted systems. The methodology is based on existing assessment frameworks and combines established standards with the principles of the multi-criteria hierarchy concept. The proposed approach models the interactions between systems’ components, environmental factors, structural limitations and operational uncertainties to identify potential failure scenarios and quantify their impact. A qualitative analysis is performed to identify and register the required risk elements of assets, vulnerabilities, threats, likelihood, and impact. Following this, a hierarchical model is developed to define the dependencies among them and enable their quantification. To demonstrate the applicability and feasibility of the proposed methodology, a drone-assisted delivery system is examined, showcasing its effectiveness in identifying hazards, evaluating critical risk elements and quantifying risk events. The results indicate the significance of the methodology in ranking the verified risk elements and identifying those that made the greatest contribution to system failure. Also, it highlights that weather-driven and power-related elements are among the most significant contributors to performance deterioration.