'Painful but non-lethal': Chinese scientists build laser to repel birds from airports

Bird strikes have been a major problem for planes with around 20,000 such incidents getting reported every year and a number of them even resulting in minor accidents. According to official data, most of the incidents take place very close to the runway with the estimate being around 98 feet above the ground. Chinese scientists have now come up with an innovative solution to avoid these incidents and keep the birds away from airports. They have constructed a robotic system which can be placed on the airport boundaries, and they use lasers to track and repel the birds.

The research, published in the peer-reviewed journal Laser & Optoelectronics Progress, was led by Professor Zhao Fan from Xian University of Technology in the province of Shaanxi.

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“Its performance exceeds other algorithms of the same type,” Zhao told South China Morning Post.

According to the research paper, the system uses artificial intelligence to track the flying birds around airports and it emits a “non-lethal but painful” beam that forces them to fly away.

First, the system uses a variety of in-built cameras to detect and track the movement of nearby birds and once the target is locked in, it emits the beam using a laser emitter and reflective mirror.

Till now, the system has shown an average accuracy rate of just above 50 per cent. However, a number of experts have expressed concerns about its accidental impacts on the pilots.

“We have to consider its potential risk for pilots. We can’t put it into use unless the system reaches 100 per cent accuracy,” a Nanjing-based aviation expert said according to the SCMP report.

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