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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.

This study aims to study the radar cross-section (RCS) of an intermeshing rotor with blade pitch.

The variation of rotor blade pitch is designed into three modes: fixed mode, linear mode and smooth mode. The dynamic process of two crossed rotors is simulated, where the instantaneous RCS is calculated by physical optics and physical theory of diffraction.

Increasing the pitch angle in the fixed mode can reduce the average RCS of rotor at the given head azimuth. The RCS curve of helicopter in linear mode and smooth mode will have a large peak in the side direction at the given moment. Although the blade pitch in smooth mode is generally larger than that in fixed mode, the smooth mode is conducive to reducing the peak and mean value of helicopter RCS at the given heading azimuth.

The calculation method for analyzing RCS of intermeshing rotor with variable blade pitch is established.

This study aims to learn the dynamic radar cross-section (RCS) of a deflection air brake.

The aircraft model with delta wing, V-shaped tail and blended wing body is designed, and high-precision unstructured grid technology is used to deal with the surface of air brake and fuselage. The calculation method based on multiple tracking and dynamic scattering is presented to calculate RCS.

The fuselage has a low scattering level, and the opening air brake will bring obvious dynamic RCS effects to itself and the whole machine. The average indicator of air brake RCS can be lower than –0.6 dBm² under the tail azimuth, while that of forward and lateral direction is lower. The mean RCS of fuselage is obviously higher than that of air brake, while the deflected air brake and its cabin can still provide strong scattering sources at some azimuths. When the air brake is opening, the change amplitude of the aircraft forward RCS can exceed 19.81 dBm².

This research has practical significance for the dynamic electromagnetic scattering analysis and stealth design of the air brake.

The calculation method for aircraft RCS considering air brake dynamic deflection has been established.

This paper aims to discuss the electromagnetic scattering characteristics of the afterbody model with two drag plates.

The plane shape of the drag plate model is designed as a rectangle. High-precision unstructured grid technology is used to treat the target surface. A calculation method based on multiple tracking and dynamic scattering module is presented to calculate the radar cross section (RCS).

The results show that under the given observation conditions, the RCS and surface scattering characteristics of a single drag plate change with the increase of the opening angle, which makes the forward RCS of the afterbody model change more than 8.43 dBm2. The opening of two resistance plates at different fixed angles has little effect on the peak value and position of the RCS of the afterbody model. The dynamic deflection of the two drag plates can bring 16.78 dBm2 fluctuations to the forward RCS of the afterbody model, and more than 25.59 dBm2 fluctuations to the side RCS.

The installation positions of the drag plate on the aircraft are various, so the method in this paper can provide reference and support for RCS analysis of the speed brake at other positions.

The presented calculation method is of engineering value to analyze the electromagnetic scattering characteristics of the drag plate.

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.

This paper aims to analyze the contradictions between telecommunications regulation and environmental law in America, via coverage of the problem of large numbers of birds being killed at communications towers.

Via statutory, legal, and qualitative analysis, this article provides an analysis of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) compliance with environmental statutes and the conflicts that arise between the agency's mandate to maintain a robust telecommunications network and its statutory responsibilities for environmental protection.

Every year, millions of birds are killed at communications towers. In 1999, the US Fish and Wildlife Service issued guidelines urging the FCC to take action on this problem, as required by various environmental statutes. The FCC ignored the guidelines for several years and defeated the American Bird Conservancy in court when that group sued for observance of the guidelines, but this ruling was later overturned on appeal. The FCC has exhibited a pattern of responding to these developments years after the fact while obfuscating its previous history of non‐compliance and non‐cooperation. As of early 2012 no viable solution to the avian mortality problem has been proposed.

The FCC is required to comply with federal environmental statutes and regulations. However, citizens wishing to dispute FCC environmental compliance will face challenges arising from conflicting statutes and inconsistencies in federal agency behavior.

There has been very little research on the intersection of environmental law and telecommunications regulation, and the particular matter of avian mortality at communications towers has only been analyzed by ornithologists and environmental scientists.

This paper aims to review the AUVSI Conference and show held in Denver, Colorado with emphasis on unmanned vehicles or service robots, their application on the ground, in the air and in the water.

In‐depth interviews with exhibitors of unmanned vehicles and the providers of the technologies which are fundamental to their design and deployment. Also attendance at conference presentations.

The unmanned vehicle industry is largely driven by government requirements, both military and civilian. Unmanned service robots are also found in applications such as crop monitoring and fish school location at sea.

Unmanned vehicles continue to address air ground and marine application needs where human safety is important. The vehicles continue to become more and more autonomous, ever better to address a wider range of application requirements.