Engineers Teach a Drone To Herd Birds Away From Airports Autonomously (techxplore.com) 47
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Tech Xplore: Engineers at Caltech have developed a new control algorithm that enables a single drone to herd an entire flock of birds away from the airspace of an airport. The algorithm is presented in a study in IEEE Transactions on Robotics. Herding relies on the ability to manage a flock as a single, contained entity -- keeping it together while shifting its direction of travel. Each bird in a flock reacts to changes in the behavior of the birds nearest to it. Effective herding requires an external threat -- in this case, the drone -- to position itself in such a way that it encourages birds along the edge of a flock to make course changes that then affect the birds nearest to them, who affect birds farther into the flock, and so on, until the entire flock changes course. The positioning has to be precise, however: if the external threat gets too zealous and rushes at the flock, the birds will panic and act individually, not collectively.
To teach the drone to herd autonomously, Soon-Jo Chung, an associate professor of aerospace, and his colleagues [...] studied and derived a mathematical model of flocking dynamics to describe how flocks build and maintain formations, how they respond to threats along the edge of the flock, and how they then communicate that threat through the flock. Their work improves on algorithms designed for herding sheep, which only needed to work in two dimensions, instead of three. Once they were able to generate a mathematical description of flocking behaviors, the researchers reverse engineered it to see exactly how approaching external threats would be responded to by flocks, and then used that information to create a new herding algorithm that produces ideal flight paths for incoming drones to move the flock away from a protected airspace without dispersing it. The team tested the algorithm on a flock of birds near a field in Korea and found that a single drone could keep a flock of dozens of birds out of a designated airspace. The effectiveness of the algorithm is only limited by the number and size of the incoming birds.
To teach the drone to herd autonomously, Soon-Jo Chung, an associate professor of aerospace, and his colleagues [...] studied and derived a mathematical model of flocking dynamics to describe how flocks build and maintain formations, how they respond to threats along the edge of the flock, and how they then communicate that threat through the flock. Their work improves on algorithms designed for herding sheep, which only needed to work in two dimensions, instead of three. Once they were able to generate a mathematical description of flocking behaviors, the researchers reverse engineered it to see exactly how approaching external threats would be responded to by flocks, and then used that information to create a new herding algorithm that produces ideal flight paths for incoming drones to move the flock away from a protected airspace without dispersing it. The team tested the algorithm on a flock of birds near a field in Korea and found that a single drone could keep a flock of dozens of birds out of a designated airspace. The effectiveness of the algorithm is only limited by the number and size of the incoming birds.
How long before a drone is sucked into an engine (Score:2)
I mean, what could go wrong?
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Re:How long before a drone is sucked into an engin (Score:5, Interesting)
Read the paper, it seems that the issue is that the flocking birds have an exclusion zone when they're flying - when the drone enters it, the bird moves away and enters other birds exclusion zones causing a ripple effect and changing the direction of the flock.
So, this isn't something that birds will learn to ignore as not a threat.
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You people don't even understand the problem. Birds in the flight path of jets get pulled into the engines and potentially blow up the engines, on landing or take-off, being the worst possible time for such a thing. So they built this drone to herd birds out of the way, awesome. But now that places a drone potentially in the flight path of jets, too. A drone made of plastics, metal and LiIon batteries would pretty much explode like a grenade inside the intake of a jet engine.
Now, if the inventors can tie th
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+1 insightful!
I have seen this happen with other bird deterring techniques.
This one seems immunized to this although but I have never seen it in use nor do I know if it is efficient:
https://www.birdbgone.com/prod... [birdbgone.com]
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I'm more interested in how long it'll take for the birds to learn that the drone can't actually hurt them
Step one: Condition birds to believe that the drone is harmless
Step two: Mount a shotgun on the drone.
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Agreed. Agricultural bird scarers use a 12v battery, propane gas cylinder
They also cover a very small area, and don't work well once the birds get used to them.
I have seen them used in cherry orchards near harvest time, and nowhere else.
Warranty VOID in Japan! (Score:3)
Drone not effective against Rodan or any other Kaiju!
Very cool application (Score:5, Insightful)
It's worth going through the paper, this is some very interesting (and understandable) research with an actual application at the end. This is an study of flocking bird behaviour with the mathematics of the birds in the flock and the resulting flock behaviour being modeled and influenced using the drone.
I don't know how practical it will be for the thousands of airports out there but for large municipal airports i would think it's very valuable.
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Simple solution, rotating blades on the front (Score:2)
Seriously, there are some non-airport sites in my city that have gigantic murders of crows. It's even worse than a scene out of Hitchcock's "The Birds"
The city spends a ton of money driving them out with fireworks, blasted sound and lights, but they're back every year.
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That's what the nighttime detergent spray is for. It washes the oil off their feathers, and then they freeze to death. Then, you just have to deal with the yard full of dead birds.
Herding algorithm? (Score:2)
To teach the drone to herd autonomously, Soon-Jo Chung, an associate professor of aerospace, and his colleagues [...] studied and derived a mathematical model of flocking dynamics to describe how flocks build and maintain formations, how they respond to threats along the edge of the flock, and how they then communicate that threat through the flock. Their work improves on algorithms designed for herding sheep, which only needed to work in two dimensions, instead of three. Once they were able to generate a mathematical description of flocking behaviors, the researchers reverse engineered it to see exactly how approaching external threats would be responded to by flocks, and then used that information to create a new herding algorithm that produces ideal flight paths for incoming drones to move the flock away from a protected airspace without dispersing it.
Sweet jesus, you fly back and forth around the area you don't want the birds to be at. They'll be pissed at the harassment and leave. Start in the middle, work your way out. Try to time it or send a signal so that the drone isn't exactly where you don't want flying things to be.
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Flocks of birds, schools of fish and herds of cattle behave in different ways.
The scientists and engineering who designed those drones are using patterns of behavior specific to flocks of birds, such as exclusion zones, which motivate them to change their course to avoid proximity to others. Anyone who has seen sheep huddling together will understand that what works for birds will not necessarily work for sheep.
Just because throwing a handful of corn makes cats dodge does not mean that chicken will do the
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The summary says they started with a 2D algorithm made for herding sheep, so yes, it has been done and has been mentioned.
There goes the dream job (Score:2)
Not Learning anything (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not Learning anything (Score:4, Interesting)
I came here to post exactly this. There was no "learning" by the drone.
They didn't take the drone, put it though "training" regime where it learned anything. They programed specific actions, nothing more. The device isn't modifying its behavior or it's response to stimuli based on it's experiences trying to heard birds.
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The drone isn't being 'taught' anything either, which was implied in the summary. It's 'programmed' just like a PIC embedded controller or a furby is programmed.
Needs continuous improvement (Score:2)
Drones work (Score:5, Informative)
I fly drones at a local airfield and can vouch for the fact that they're a very effective method of getting rid of birds from such places.
When I first started flying at the airfield there were healthy (albeit not for the aircraft that used the place) populations of gulls, pluvers and (at certain times of the year) ducks. It was impossible to deter those birds using ground-based techniques but chasing them well beyond the airfield boundaries with a small racing drone has resulted in a dramatic drop in numbers.
Since I started driving the birds away (be still all you animal-rights activists) there has not been a single bird-strike at the airfield.
Of course the media would rather report that, as a drone flier, I could be spying on people, carrying high-explosives and trying to bring down airliners -- but then again we all know that what you read in the media is (these days) far from the truth.
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Of course the media would rather report that, as a drone flier, I could be spying on people, carrying high-explosives and trying to bring down airliners -- but then again we all know that what you read in the media is (these days) far from the truth.
Right, those things never happen [nytimes.com].
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LOL... I thank Venezuela for demonstrating how ineffective drones would be in this role!
Proof that the media is blowing the risk way out of proportion!
Watch this video [youtube.com], it puts some of the risks in perspective.
One very expensive scarecrow (Score:2)
We've been herding away birds from fields for several millenia. Should've asked a farmer, not an engineer.
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Engineers often times over design things, but I'm not so sure that a scarecrow is going to work here.
I actually think it's an interesting idea, though I'm a bit aghast at the prospect of an aircraft / drone collision. Like it or not, a drone can do some serious damage to a commercial airliner. This drone will require significant supervision and coordination with air traffic too. This just gets complicated quickly.
Not to mention that I think there might be better solutions out there. Propane cannon noise
Re:One very expensive scarecrow (Score:5, Insightful)
Should've asked a farmer, not an engineer.
The farmer would have told you that scarecrows are mostly ineffective.
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When used properly and if they're not fully stationary (and often moved so they're not part of the landscape), they do keep most birds away.
Please (Score:3, Insightful)
Can I use it on telemarketers?
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Try disabling your voicemail.
Years ago I stopped listening to voicemail and nothing bad happened. It was mostly spam anyway, and the few genuine people I actually wanted to talk to would send an email anyway.
It's a great filter. People you want to talk to know to arrange a time to call first. Everyone else just hangs on the line for ages waiting for the voicemail that never comes. I get the impression that alone is often enough to get you off their spamming lists.