Autonomous Multi-Modal Avian Deterrence System for Commercial Airfield Operations

Introduction

Avian incursions represent one of the most persistent, high-liability operational hazards in commercial and military aviation. Beyond the catastrophic risk of high-speed engine ingestions on active runways, roosting, nesting, and corrosive droppings across hangars, tarmac staging areas, and perimeter fences incur millions of dollars in structural degradation and maintenance downtime annually.

Compounding this threat is a strict regulatory and operational barrier: wildlife protection statutes strictly prohibit indiscriminate, lethal deterrents. Effective mitigation demands real-time species classification to target specific nuisance populations while sparing federally protected wildlife. Furthermore, because remote airfield perimeters frequently lack water line infrastructure or direct AC grid power, systems must operate reliably off primary battery banks and deploy both passive and active non-lethal deterrents tailored to specific species behavior (such as green laser deterrents for geese versus targeted kinetic water bursts for species unaffected by light).

Operating within our Modified Agile for Hardware Development (MAHD) framework, Landi Industries was brought in by an aerospace safety innovator that had developed an initial benchtop proof of concept (PoC) for optical bird detection. The customer required an experienced cross-disciplinary engineering partner to solve critical hardware failures: an optical assembly blinded by hydrodynamic kickback, an unsustainable compute power draw on battery reserves, and rigid payload limitations that prevented multi-modal deterrent deployment.

The Challenge

The customer’s early prototype successfully performed basic camera detection in a static benchtop setup. However, translating this concept into an autonomous, field-deployable perimeter sentinel revealed fundamental physics and systems architecture flaws:

• Optical-Hydraulic Recoil Coupling:

  In early testing, firing high-velocity water pulses created severe impulse shock through the mount, shaking and blinding the camera. To achieve accurate lead-angle targeting without losing visual lock, the camera needed complete mechanical shock isolation without requiring a bulky, physically separated second turret.

• Extreme Edge-Compute Power Constraints:

  Remote airfield fences and light stanchions lack utility power, requiring primary battery operation. Running high-throughput neural network models on power-heavy GPUs rapidly depleted battery reserves. The system needed a dedicated microcontroller-based edge vision architecture optimized for heavy image processing at a fraction of standard power draw.

• Payload Rigidity & Species-Specific Deterrence:

  Different avian species respond to fundamentally different deterrent stimuli. Geese are highly sensitive to green laser scatter, while ducks and other waterfowl are largely indifferent to light and require kinetic water deterrents. Furthermore, arid flight lines or water-restricted hangar bays needed a waterless, dry deployment option.

• Full 360-Degree Continuous Articulation:

  The turret required continuous 360-degree rotational tracking to engage incoming flight vectors from any bearing without binding internal cabling or twisting high-pressure fluid lines.

The Approach & Process

Physical Manifestation & Multi-System Engineering

Landi Industries translated conceptual industrial designs into fully parametric SolidWorks PLM models, integrating internal force-absorbing mechanics with a modular, military-inspired payload architecture.

The Result

Complete Manufacturing Readiness: Landi Industries provided a comprehensive engineering handoff—including SolidWorks PLM assemblies, full electrical schematics, telemetry specifications, and a tiered manufacturing roadmap ready for contract fabrication.