Managing Bird Damage in Crops with NXP HoverGames3

Thousands of airplane bird strikes occur each year, in spite of airports having many safety and conservation measures in place to minimize these potentially damaging and dangerous situations to both the Aircraft and the Crew / Passengers onboard. To prevent this I am going to build an active Bird detection and Prevention system using NXP Hovergames Drone fitted with NXP NavQPlusCamera Module which can detect the birds in the vicinity of the airfield and can approach them and can trigger the necessary measures (Shot Guns, Sonic Cannons, Flare, Laser etc. attached below the drone as Payload) to distract the bird and keep them away. Also this system can flag the Warning to the Runway Control OPs to immediately rush the spot and take necessary actions. Also If the birds are directly on the way to to approaching/departing aircraft on the Runway, it can even flag the pilots to make an go around and prevent the bird strike completely.

Background

A bird strike is strictly defined as a collision between a bird and an aircraft which is in flight or on a take off or landing roll. The term is often expanded to cover other wildlife strikes - with bats or ground animals.

Bird Strike is common and can be a significant threat to aircraft safety. For smaller aircraft, significant damage may be caused to the aircraft structure and all aircraft, especially jet-engined ones, are vulnerable to the loss of thrust which can follow the ingestion of birds into engine air intakes. This has resulted in a number of fatal accidents.

Bird strikes may occur during any phase of flight but are most likely during the take-off, initial climb, approach and landing phases due to the greater numbers of birds in flight at lower levels. Since most birds fly mainly during the day, most bird srikes occur in daylight hours as well.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, over 10, 000 bird strikes occur each year, averaging more than 26 hits a day !!

That's why I decided to develop Birds Detection and Prevention System using NXP Hovergames Drone fitted with NXP NavQPlusCamera Module and train the ML model to detect the birds. Once the birds are detected by the Model the NXP Hovergames drone can be navigated and approach near the Birds and can trigger the necessary measure/actions like Shot Guns, Airport Bird Wailer, Sonic Cannons, Flare, Laser etc. which are attached below the belly of drones as a payload and can be triggered by the generic python script.

Assembling the Drone

Hovergames drone can be assembled by following the documentation from official contest page gitbook - https://nxp.gitbook.io/hovergames/userguide/assembly

Components Required for the assembly -

Due to Drone import restrictions in INDIA I'm not able to Import the official Hovergames Kit, rather I bought the Kit from here in India also thanks to Ian Galloway sir for sending the FMU Unit.