2023 Author: Bryan Walter | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-21 22:24
Researchers in the UK, USA and South Korea have created an algorithm for drones that allows them to autonomously drive flocks of birds away from a limited area, such as an airport. The developers tested the algorithm both on a computer model and on a real quadcopter. An article describing the algorithm and experiments was published in the IEEE Transactions on Robotics.
Birds are a great danger to aircraft. In the event of a collision, the aircraft can be seriously damaged, and sometimes it leads to engine failure or several failures, and even the aircraft crash. Because of this, airports are equipped with active bird scaring systems, which work by means of acoustic or light radiation.
A team of engineers led by David Hyunchul Shim of the Korea Institute of Advanced Technology has created an active bird protection system based on drones. First, the researchers created a model of the behavior of a flock of birds and identified several key parameters, such as the critical distance to the stranger, the distance at which the birds interact with each other as a flock, and others. It is worth noting that using this model assumes that these flight parameters are known to the drone algorithm.
System operation diagram
The task of the algorithm is to choose the trajectory of its movement that meets several requirements. This trajectory should in a finite time shift the "center of gravity" of the flock to a given point, and the trajectories of the birds should not cross the boundaries of the specified protected area. In addition, the trajectory should not be too "aggressive" so as not to split the flock into several parts, which will complicate the control over the birds.
The researchers evaluated the performance of the model both in a computer simulation and experimentally, near the Korean city of Daejeon. The experiments were carried out on flocks of herons and loons, for which the authors selected different parameters. They used two quadcopters, one of which chased the birds, and the other flew high above it and helped determine the trajectories of the drone and the birds. Experiments have shown that the method developed by the researchers can be generally considered workable, but the model of the behavior of birds in a flock in response to an external stimulus requires refinement to reflect the real behavior of animals.
It's worth noting that drones themselves pose a serious threat to aircraft, with recent research showing that collisions between drone and aircraft are even more dangerous than colliding with birds. You can learn about how such a study is carried out and what measures to ensure safety are proposed by specialists from our material "Drone through."
