In 2009, US Airways Flight 1549 was hit by a flock of birds and had to make an emergency landing in the Hudson River in New York. All 155 people on the flight survived, but only because of an incredible landing by the pilot, Chesley Sullenberger. Bird strikes are rare, but they happen enough that airports have to take them very seriously.

Keeping birds away from planes taking off and landing has always been a difficult job. It’s incredibly hard to predict and control the behavior of birds. To solve this issue, some airports have stared using piloted drones to scare them away, but it’s expensive and the approach is limited by how many drone pilots they have available.  That may be set to change with new autonomous drone technology developed by CalTech research professionals.

Soon-Jo Chung from CalTech became interested in this area of research after seeing the film “Sully”, based on US Airways flight 1549 crash landing in the Hudson River. “That accident made me think that next time it might not have such a fortunate ending,” he said. “I started to look into ways to guard airspace against birds by leveraging my research areas in autonomy and robotic engineering.”

Drone technology seems like an obvious solution to the problem, but implementing such a system comes with its own risks. Predicting and influencing the behavior of birds is no easy task. “You have to be careful where you place your drone. If it’s far away, the flock won’t move. If it’s too close, the flock may scatter and be totally uncontrollable” Chung said. Which in turn could cause an accident and put lives at risk.

The group at CalTech looked at different models and analyzed data from a wide array of sources including how birds move, react to the drones, and more in order to find ways to control the birds without them scattering wildly.

This new software is promising. Drones were used in several places with clear instructions to deter birds from entering protected areas. The tests were a success and showed that the software worked well. More work is still needed before this will get the green light to be used in airports, but it’s getting close and could certainly help prevent future disasters.