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This paper aims to review the critical technology development of avian radar system at airports.

After the origin of avian radar technology is discussed, the target characteristics of flying birds are analyzed, including the target echo amplitude, flight speed, flight height, trajectory and micro-Doppler. Four typical airport avian radar systems of Merlin, Accipiter, Robin and CAST are introduced. The performance of different modules such as antenna, target detection and tracking, target recognition and classification, analysis of bird information together determines the detection ability of avian radar. The performances and key technologies of the ubiquitous avian radar are summarized and compared with other systems, and their applications, deployment modes, as well as their advantages and disadvantages are introduced and analyzed.

The ubiquitous avian radar achieves the long-time integration of target echoes, which greatly improves detection and classification ability of the targets of birds or drones, even under strong background clutter at airport. In addition, based on the big data of bird situation accumulated by avian radar, the rules of bird activity around the airport can be mined to guide the bird avoidance work.

This paper presented a novel avian radar system based on ubiquitous digital radar technology. The authors’ experience has confirmed that this system can be effective for airport bird strike prevention and management. In the future, the avian radar system will see continued improvement in both software and hardware, as the system is designed to be easily extensible.

Bird strike risk (BSR) evaluation is a significant part of the avian radar system worldwide installed and operated at airports. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper proposed a method using the real-time avian radar data to evaluate BSR with the estimations of bird strike probability and severity. The probability estimation model considered the attributes of the relative positions of the flock and the runway, the altitude of the flock and the aircraft, the flight path of the aircraft, and the ability of the bird species to avoid collision. The severity was estimated by the combination of the Delphi method and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), called DAHP, which took full advantage of the expert knowledge and quantitative calculation.

The model was tested successfully on the simulated data at Beijing Capital International Airport (BCIA) with three runways and real data at Beihai Fucheng Airport (BFA) with one runway.

The BSR evaluation model was specifically designed for the airports with avian radars. It enabled the airport managers to objectively evaluate the risk in real time and to take effective measures.

The proposed BSR evaluation model was constructed with the real-time features of birds and aircraft based on the DAHP framework, providing scientific guidance for aviation safety and environmental management at the airport.

Incoherent primary radar is an applicable means for security surveillance of low-altitude airspace. An experimental airspace surveillance radar system has been developed for such applications. Target detector based on radar images is a powerful technique for the system. The main difficulty in designing such a detector is the rejection of heavy edge clutter for the plane position indicator (PPI) radar images after background subtraction.

The paper proposes an edge clutter rejection (ECR) detector with spatial characteristics to detect target instead of sheer threshold segmentation.

The paper chooses the optimal parameter values for the ECR detector and compares it with the existing techniques. Detection results show that the proposed detector achieves higher probability of detection with low false alarm rate, outperforming the fixed-threshold detector and the popular constant false alarm rate detectors. The ECR detector also presents limited computational cost due to its concentration on the pixels detected by the fixed-threshold algorithm with low threshold.

The aviation security of low-altitude airspace can be greatly increased by designing affordable airspace surveillance radar system.

The paper presents critical techniques for clutter rejection with PPI images, which is a significant part of the surveillance system.

Foreign object debris (FOD) poses a significant hazard to aviation safety and brings huge economic losses to the aerospace industry due to aircraft damage and out‐of‐service delays. Different schemes and sensors have been utilized for FOD detection. This paper aims to look into a video‐based FOD detection system for airport runway security and propose a scheme for FOD surveillance network establishment.

The FOD detection algorithm for the system is analyzed in detail, including four steps of pre‐processing, background subtraction, post‐processing and FOD location.

The overall algorithm is applied to two sets of live video images. The results show that the algorithm is effective for FOD targets of different shades under different lighting conditions. The proposed system is also evaluated by the ground‐truth data collected at Nanyang Airport.

The runway security can be greatly increased by designing an affordable video‐based FOD detection system.

The paper presents critical techniques of video‐based FOD detection system. The scheme for FOD surveillance network, as a significant part of aviation risk management at airports, is applicable and extensible.

The purpose of this paper is to create a conceptual design a bird-inspired unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) that can stay in the air for a long time while this design influences the species near the airport with predator appearance. To achieve that goal, reverse engineering methods took into account to find out optimal parameter, and effective bird species were examined to be taken as an example.

Design parameters were determined according to the behaviour of bird species in the region and their natural enemies. Dalaman airport where is located near the fresh water supplies and sea, was chosen as the area to run. To keep such birds away from the airport and to prevent potential incidents, information from animal behaviour studies is enormously important. According to Tinbergen, chicken and gees reacted to all short-necked birds because they thought they were predators. The entire method is based on information from these data, along with reverse engineering principles.

UAV can remain in the air for more than 5 min when the engine stops at an altitude of 200 m. Also, when the UAV loses altitude of 100 m, it can cover a distance of about 2 m with the 19.8-glide ratio. Moreover, 380 KV brushless electric motor can provide 5.2 kg thrust force with 17 × 8-inch folding propeller which means 1.3 thrust to weight ratio (T/W). This engine and propeller combination work up to 12 min at maximum power with 7000 mAh lipo-battery. The UAV can climb more than 40 min at 0.2 T/W ratio.

While bird-inspired UAV trials have just begun, general ornithopter studies have taken smaller birds as their source because this is the limit of the flapping wing, one of the largest birds modelled in this study. Thus, it is inevitable the UAV influences other birds in the area. In addition, this bird’s inherent flight behaviour, such as soaring, ridge lifting and gliding, will increase its credibility. Owing to size similarity with UAV systems, reverse engineering methods worked well in the design.

Some of the specialist try to fly trained falcon in airport as an alternative method. This study focussed on the design of a bird-inspired UAV by optimizing the glide performance, both for scare the other birds around the airport and for the observation of birds in the vicinity and for the identification of bird species.

As this type of work has been proven to reduce the risk of bird strikes, the sense of flight safety on society will increase.

Researchers and companies generally work on flapping wing models for related subjects. However, these products are kind of model of the Falconiformes species which don’t have too much influence on big birds. For this reason, the authors took account of Imperial eagle’s specifications. These birds perform long soaring flights while seeking for prey like the glider design. So, the authors think it is a new approach for designing UAV for preventing bird-strike.

A pilot's ability to control a high performance aircraft in bad flying conditions can be tested by a new machine built for the Ministry of Aviation by the Precision Engineering Division of Short Brothers & Harland Ltd., Belfast.

The modern industrialized world was completely caught off guard by the recent SARS outbreak. Fortunately, for most organizations, the impact has been short lived, but management has been provided with a reminder of the impact of the external environment in a world of ever increasing globalization. As seen with the SARS outbreak, a lack of preparedness can have devastating effects on business and warrant inclusion in a business definition of a crisis. This paper uses the recent SARS epidemic as a background to highlight the importance of crisis planning, particularly in emerging economies, and suggests how organizations can address these concerns.

By overviewing the role of Hong Kong to the European Union (EU), the world’s largest economic bloc and a key global actor, the purpose of this paper is to understand any change in international prominence and status of Hong Kong after two decades of its sovereignty return.

It is based on analysis of statistics, government discourses and official documents.

Main findings are that although the function of Hong Kong as an entrepot of China–EU trade and the ranking of the city as the EU’s trade partners have both diminished, the city sustains its roles as a platform to enter Mainland China, a regional hub in Asia, a major international capital market, a diplomatic counterpart and a partner in socio-cultural aspects to the EU. This paper agrees with the EU’s view that continuous well-functioning of Hong Kong under “One Country, Two System” serves stake of the Union which is keen on helping the SAR to ensure its high autonomy. Yet, the determinants remain Hong Kong and Beijing Governments, which have been and should continue to make use of Hong Kong’s closer tie with the mainland to promote international importance of both the city and China.

Research on relations between Hong Kong and the EU has been few, especially so in the past decades. This paper serves as a stock-take of the most recent developments in Hong Kong–EU relation.

This paper provides a thematic analysis of an IUCN Red-Listed bird, the houbara bustard, which Pakistan uses as a fungible resource to appease its wealthy Arab benefactors.

Thematic analysis of relevant media reports and government ministry and NGO websites comprise the study's data. Media reports were located using Dow Jones' Factiva database.

Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issues wealthy Arabs special permits for hunting the houbara bustard as a “soft” foreign diplomacy strategy aimed at propping up the country's fragile economy. Although illegal under international and Pakistan's own wildlife laws, resource dependence theory helps explain how various country-specific issues (e.g. dysfunctional political and judicial systems) enable Pakistan's unlawful exchange of hunting permits for Arab oil and short-term financing. Surrogate accountability and agencement are examined as two means for arresting the bird's trajectory toward extinction.

Media reports comprise the primary data. Pakistani government officials were approached for interviews, but failed to reply. Although unfortunate, the pervasive corruption and mistrust that characterise Pakistan's culture would have likely tainted the responses. For this reason, media reports were always the primary data sought.

The present study extends prior literature by exploring how country context can subvert the transferability of social and political approaches used in developed countries to address environmental accounting issues and challenges. As this study shows, a developing country's economic vulnerability, combined with its dysfunctional political systems, impotent judiciary and feckless regulatory mechanisms, can undermine legislation meant to protect the country's natural environment, in general, and a threatened bird's existence, in particular.