Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ROBIRD (A truly and unique robotic bird of prey for a long-term effective and safe bird control management of airports)
Reporting period: 2019-05-01 to 2019-08-31
Airports are attractive sites for birds with its large open areas and its grasslands that allow them to forage, nest and rest. But the presence of birds in the runways increases the risk of collision with aircraft, leading to billions of dollars in damages to global aviation annually and loss of human life. In order to diminish the presence of birds at the airfield, thus reducing strike hazard, we have developed RoBird, a remote-control robotic bird of prey. It has the realistic appearance and flight performance indistinguishable to a real peregrine falcon. Through the combination of realistic silhouette and carefully mimicked flight behavior, other birds think RoBird is a real predator. Because of these characteristics, RoBird is one of the most safe, humane, long-term effective form of bird control. It is the perfect tool for airport bird control and many other bird-related problems.
The technical assessment allowed us to identify the most important technical developments to upgrade the prototypes before market launch. Thus, our efforts will focus on the increase of prototype robustness and durability and ease access to inner mechanisms. The commercial assessment enabled us to identify the aviation industry as the most attractive for RoBird initial market penetration. We analyzed the target and competitive markets and develop an appropriate business and commercial strategy to accelerate scalability. We also perform a FTO analysis and concluded that there are no public patents that may affect RoBird commercialization. In the Financial assessment we identified the investment required to finalize the version 2.0 of the prototypes and performed financial projections for the first 5 years after commercialization.
Current methods to ensure the minimization of aircraft-bird strikes comprise several audio, visual, chemical and removal deterrent techniques that cause birds discomfort or fright. In general, the main limitation of these bird control methods is habituation: birds learn quickly that the repelling devices are not harmful and can be ignored, losing their effectiveness over time. On the other hand, lethal techniques are not popular with the public since they are not considered humane. RoBird guarantees long-term effectiveness in bird control since it triggers the survival instinct of pest birds, imprinted within their DNA. RoBird is an animal-friendly solution that preserves public air safety without harming birds.