(IVAR) - Final Report - Strategic Environmental Research and ...

Early Notification – The two biologists expended approximately 8 of the total 10 hours of effort
over a three-day period to determine how the DRP improves situational awareness from the
perspective of providing early notification of hazardous wildlife activity. They noted that much
of the bird activity on the airfield during this period was smaller non-hazardous birds such as
sparrows. In one of a total of ten occurrences, the observers were confident they were
responding to the same bird activity first detected by the radar (several crows). Vehicle response
time was indicated as a complicating factor in confirming the presence of the bird target seen
earlier on the display.
Observational Confirmation – The two biologists spent 90 minutes in observational confirmation
trials. Radar tracks displayed on the remote DRP were compared with known bird activity first
recognized by visual observation from the vehicle supporting the remote display. There were
two instances where a flock of 300-400 starlings was seen and the AR-1 provided track data to
the DRP remote display.
Display Latency Determination – Because the tracking algorithm requires several scan periods
before a new track is elevated to “confirmed” status, quantifying this latency was important for
understanding its impact on near real-time situational awareness. The biologists spent 30
minutes determining display latency differences between the GEC and the DRP (Appendix E,
Table E-1). They conducted multiple trails to determine the amount of time that had passed from
when a target became mobile to when it was actually tracked and visible on the display. This kind
of activity emulates the typical scenario of a bird taking off from the airfield. For this situation,
and for those when a target became stationary (e.g., landed), the direct DRP display
was consistently twice as fast at 8-10 seconds compared to the 17-22 s of the GEC. A similar
relationship was noted for the fly passing trials: the DRP display was updated every 2.5 seconds,
half the refresh interval of the GEC display. The latency result was equivalent to the associated
update rate (screen refresh rate) for both the DRP and the GEC.
Utility for Airport Wildlife Hazard Management - The one-hour play back feature of the GEC
allowed the two biologists to do a quick review of bird activity on the airfield and then proceed
to that location where the greatest amount of bird movement had recently been tracked. After
repositioning to the area of higher bird use, we employed the DRP to assist the human observers,
who also used binoculars on occasion, to better monitor bird presence.
Technology Rating – The biologists assigned numerical ratings based on the overall usefulness of
the DRP to a person tasked with wildlife hazard management responsibilities on an active airfield.
The mean rating for all 10 categories was 3.4, where 3 is good and 4 is very good. Very good
ratings were given to “Ease of Implementation”, “Demonstrated Validity of Display” and
“Reliability” because the display was readily accessible from the vehicle, it provided a general
sense of the low hazard level that had been witnessed during its use, and it proved reliable during
each of the seven times it was used to gather data for the survey assessment, respectively. The
system was also able to detect and track the several flocks of starlings, the most hazardous
concentration of bird activity seen during this evaluation. A good rating was assigned to “Ease
of Use”, “Timeliness”, and “General Utility”. The overall rating of the display itself was more
varied, ranging from very good for “Display Information Content”, and good for “Display
Update Rate” to fair for “Display Format”. The higher rating for content was due to the DRP’s
option to display plots (suspected targets) as well as tracks (confirmed targets). Format ranked
as fair because screen navigation, particularly zooming in to a desired location was cumbersome.
“Improved Situational Awareness”, which was at the center of the survey instrument, ranked
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