Fairbanks Airport Trusts Robot to Keep Migratory Birds Away from Airstrips

It’s an idea from the Alaska Transportation Agency, the Labrador-sized robot is to patrol around the trails every hour and hunt migratory birds.

Is this Scarecrow 2.0? In Alaska, an airport purchased a robot to hunt migratory birds that threaten planes during takeoff and landing. This robot which has the appearance of a dog, well, a four-legged robot in any case, was created by Boston Dynamics, the most talked about robotics firm because videos of its creations regularly appear on social networks. We see robots moving with great agility, and a humanoid or four-legged shape but without a head.

Alaska’s second airport, that of Fairbanks, a city of 35,000 inhabitants, chose to buy this robot the size of a Labrador and pass it off as a fox or a coyote, but without fur so that it remains waterproof. Aurora – that’s its name – can move on steep terrain in the rain or in the snow, in Alaska, it can be useful. He must patrol every hour around the tracks. The robot, worth $70,000, must make people believe in the presence of a predator and keep migratory birds at bay. The Fairbanks airport will test it starting this fall, when migrations begin, and will also observe how other animals, bears; for example, welcome this new arrival.

Different options considered

It’s the idea of ​​the Alaska Transportation Agency. There was once talk of dropping grape juice with drones, apparently it keeps the birds at bay. But the agency found it risky to use drones near an airport. She also wondered if the grape juice might attract other animals and replace one problem with another. In the 1990s, near a lake in Anchorage, the capital of Alaska, authorities called in pigs in the hope that they would eat geese and duck eggs. Today, another, more basic technique involves sending members of the forestry service to make a lot of noise around the tracks. Aurora can work 24 hours a day, does not need to rest or eat and has an on-board camera that also allows you to observe nature. To those who worry about a Terminator-like world, the authorities respond to Anchorage Daily Newsthe most read newspaper in Alaska, that we should instead imagine a Roomba robot vacuum cleaner.

Even if we are not talking about one of the ten plagues of Egypt, these migratory birds pose problems. Last year, 92 animals crashed into planes in Alaska, 10 in Fairbanks alone. Generally, the damage to the device is minimal, but if a bird ends up in the engine, the risks are greater. In 1995 an Awacs, this radar plane with a huge tailgate, crashed after hitting geese near a military airport in Anchorage. The accident left 24 dead. If Aurora’s tests are successful, other airports may adopt the method to save money in the long term.