Entry of drones into flight zones around airports and runways is strictly prohibited in most cases. One of the few cases is the permission to enter drones, which drive away flocks of birds with the intention of preventing unnecessary complications during the take-off or landing of aircraft. However, manually controlled quadcopters can be extremely unreliable. If the drone operator reacts too aggressively, the birds may be spooked, causing serious accidents and property damage. It is precisely this fact that the one from the California Institute of Technology, which is known under the abbreviation Caltech, is dealing with. Engineers there have developed an algorithm that helps drones chase uncoordinated flocks of birds off runways.
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Engineers from Caltech were inspired by an incident during a US flight when developing this technology Airways 1549 from 2009, which became known as the "Miracle on the Hudson". As you may already know from the film adaptation, the accident that led to the emergency landing on the Hudson River was caused by a flock of geese that flew into the engine and damaged it. “Thinking about how badly this whole incident could have ended, I decided to participate in the development of safeguards. I was looking for a way to protect airplanes and other objects from birds using robotics. The most promising area is the development and programming of autonomous drones," notes the leader of the development team Soon-Jo Chung.
You may remember the terrible incident from 2009, which did not end in tragedy only thanks to the alertness of the chief pilot. Caltech developers want to prevent similar threats with the help of drones.
Based on a theoretical publication IEEE Transactions on Robotics, the first step for this engineer was to get to know the mindset of birds as a whole. The researchers studied in detail the formations of birds that fly in flocks and their subsequent reactions to potential threats. Using a subsequent mathematical model, they proved that in the vicinity of the drone, which poses a danger to the flock, the birds change course one by one and start flying in a different direction. But if the drone approaches very quickly and aggressively, the birds will fly in all directions, which could lead to very dangerous situations. In doing so, he subsequently worked out an algorithm whose task is to coordinate the movement of birds, similar to driving sheep into a pen.
This led to subsequent field tests with a location in Korea, which ended with very positive results. It turned out that a single drone is capable of driving a flock of several dozen birds into a safe zone. However, researchers are still struggling with a practical solution for airports to put several drones into operation at once. However, the complete replacement of manually controlled drones is expected in the future.
