FAA Seeks Birds-Eye View of Wildlife Incursions
What should airports do when wildlife won’t leave? The FAA is looking at a possible aerial solution: Drones.
By Jim Tise, FAA
From grizzly bears in Alaska and Canada geese in New York, to alligators in Florida and birds just about everywhere, wildlife around airports poses a potential danger to aircraft landing and taking off. Perhaps the most famous accident involving wildlife was the 2009 “Miracle on the Hudson,” in which Capt. Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger landed a US Airways jet on the Hudson River after both engines of the aircraft he was piloting ingested birds and failed.
That accident underscores the importance of the work the FAA and U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) have been doing since the 1990s to study the problem of wildlife hazards. Now, with drones expanding the capabilities of so many industries, the FAA is embarking on an effort to understand how this new technology might be used to monitor wildlife hazards at airports, and potentially how to use them to prevent nesting nearby or crossing paths with aircraft.
“Drones seem to be the future,” said Amy Anderson, an FAA national wildlife biologist. “A lot of airports are working on how to use them. I think that this is the perfect opportunity to advance the wildlife mitigation programs as well.”
The FAA sponsors the research, which is being overseen by the agency’s William J. Hughes Technical Center in Atlantic City, N.J. Part of their mission is to help “airports to find ways to mitigate hazardous wildlife around airports,” Anderson said. Birds are an especially persistent problem. Her office maintains the National Wildlife Strike Database that categorizes every wildlife strike — 95 percent of which are caused by birds.
To that end, the FAA has collaborated with the USDA and the Mississippi State University (MSU) to develop research targeting the use of drones to collect data on wildlife hazards around airports.
“We’re taking what we learned in those previous studies and developing an application to monitor wildlife on and near airfields,” said Wesley Major, an FAA airport safety specialist.
MSU was selected as a research partner for its strong wildlife department and machine-learning environment — an area of research that allows machines to learn without being directly programmed.
“We’re trying to marry these two concepts to develop a methodology to have almost computer-generated monitoring or identification of wildlife,” said Major.
Research factors include a drone’s altitude, speed, and camera technology to optimize wildlife monitoring. The FAA wants to learn where and why wildlife use particular locations on airports. The goal is to issue guidance to airport sponsors and wildlife biologists on using drones to perform monitoring activities and, perhaps eventually, disperse wildlife.
Researchers at MSU are hoping to use drones to standardize wildlife data in a way that will help biologists identify which species of mammals and birds are indigenous to a particular airport. Armed with that data, biologists can devise ways to disperse them in non-lethal ways.
The MSU researchers have conducted dozens of drone flights and are midway through the first phase of the FAA-sponsored project, which seeks to determine what kind of drones and sensors are best for monitoring birds. The next phase will add mammal species — including domestic animals like horses, cattle, and deer — to the research equation. This second phase also will include nighttime sampling and the beginnings of what is hoped to be an image repository.
“Having standardized data from multiple airports throughout the year and across multiple years will be very valuable for airport wildlife strike mitigation,” said Raymond Iglay, assistant professor of wildlife ecology at MSU.
USDA’s Bradley Blackwell, co-investigator with Iglay, has collaborated on wildlife issues with the FAA since 1997. In that time, he has seen the agency’s wildlife strike database mature in both content and management. Wildlife reporting has increased, as well, and with it, awareness of the problem and the cost.
“Our research focus has changed as well, from smaller scale operations on airfields proper to broader perspectives on safety,” said Blackwell.
Improvements in computer hardware and software and sensor technology are giving biologists a whole new view of airport environments from the points of view of birds.
“Thirty years ago we couldn’t scratch the surface on this perspective,” he said.
The research that the FAA, USDA, and MSU are undertaking is the tip of an iceberg. Many more factors must be considered when considering drone use around airports. Will the drones drive off the birds and animals they are trying to count? Will sensor technology be able to identify and catalog species from the air in an accurate way?
Blackwell sees potential opportunities for drones on two fronts: From a dispersal perspective, “they’re going to play a strong role,” he predicted. “A drone allows a person to see at a distance and to move quickly.” From a survey context, Blackwell said, “I would like to think if I could get to altitude working within FAA rules for operations, it’s going to give the biologist a better perspective about how species are using the airport. I see that as a future opportunity for counting animals where we can’t count them now.”
“You can use them 24/7,” said John Weller, an FAA national wildlife biologist. “They’re a pair of binoculars that work in rain or shine, day or night. “There’s no end in sight” for their use, he added.
