Risk assessment of muon single-event effects for low-altitude aircraft

Abstract

With the rapid development of low-altitude economy, the radiation environment safety of low-altitude aircraft such as drones and electric vertical take-off and landing aircraft has attracted increasing attention. Although the dense lower atmosphere traditionally serves as an effective shield against cosmic radiation, the shrinking feature sizes of modern integrated circuits greatly enhance their vulnerability to single-event effects (SEEs). This study quantitatively evaluates muon-induced SEE risks for low-altitude aircraft in various regions of China under both static cosmic-ray background and ground-level enhancement (GLE) events, aiming to provide critical guidance for the next-generation low-altitude aviation platforms.Using city-specific atmospheric models within the CORSIKA framework, we simulate atmospheric shower processes and obtain reliable energy spectra for low-energy muons (10-100 MeV). We also employ simulation data from other research groups to estimate muon-induced SEE cross sections for transistors at different process nodes, including bulk, FD-SOI, and FinFET technologies. By incorporating solar energetic particle spectra associated with GLE events, we assess muon-induced SEE risks under both static and GLE conditions. Our results show that under static conditions, flight control systems with 1 MB memory using advanced nodes below 45 nm and bulk transistors face non-negligible muon-induced SEE risks in all Chinese cities. In contrast, systems with FD-SOI transistors can effectively mitigate these risks. For large-memory systems (1 GB), redundancy or other hardening measures are essential regardless of the process technology. Regarding GLE events, we introduce the concept of muon hazard levels to evaluate regional risk variations. During GLEs, the increase in muon-induced SEE risk is negligible in mid-to-low latitude regions but becomes significant at high latitudes.