The work aims to study the cushioning process of the cylindrical airbag in some airdrop cushioning system to obtain the cushioning curve and check the impact overload of the equipment. Based on the finite element theory, the finite element model of the airbag cushioning system was established with the explicit dynamic analysis software LS-DYNA in Ansys. The numerical simulation of airbag cushioning process was conducted in the particle method and compared with the control volume method used in the traditional airbag simulation. Based on the simulation, the opening time of the airbag exhaust port in the airdrop landing cushioning process was 63.4 ms, the maximum overload in the cushioning process was 13.3g, and the change rule of such characteristics as cushioning height and loading acceleration were obtained. By comparing the airbag cushioning characteristics with the results from the simulation carried out in the traditional control volume method, the opening time error of exhaust port was 10.7% and the maximum overload error was about 8.3%. Based on the result comparison of these two methods, they have a good consistency. The feasibility of cushion airbag simulation in the particle method is verified and the maximum overload of the cylindrical airbag used for cushioning meets the requirement that the overload does not exceed 20g for equipment airdrop.