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

score, is the fact that the radars continued to monitor bird activity even after our evaluations had
terminated at the end of each day.
Experimental use of the Accipiter® sense and alert system at SEA has determined that this
function provides remote alerts in the forms of an audible alarm or an email notification (Osmek
et al., 2009). This function was not evaluated at the current study because of the complexity of
assigning criteria to substantial areas of the airfield in a manner where only hazardous birds
trigger an alert message and not smaller birds that are not typically considered hazardous or
worthy of performing mitigation measures.
One viewpoint expressed during this survey that relates to another aspect of getting information
about birds to the air operations personnel is the need for a system alarm to notify of failing
system health. This would be similar to the FAA receiving an alarm when their Navigational
Aid Systems (NAVAIDS) malfunction or are somehow compromised.
Before this evaluation of real-time remote radar displays, SEA had primarily analyzed archived
radar data to determine historic temporal and spatial trends of starling activity and for assessing
the potential attractiveness of new airport stormwater detention ponds. From an airport
operator’s perspective, this radar technology currently provides data that directly supports the
monitoring requirements needed to perform the SEA ongoing Wildlife Hazard Assessment, a
stated goal in the SEA Wildlife Hazard Management Plan (WHMP), which is a part of the
airport’s FAA Certification Manual. Moreover, enhanced observational coverage, especially at
night, provided better real-time situational awareness of airport bird use at distances far above
the normal abilities of the observer (> 10 km).
We were unable to demonstrate the ability of the wildlife biologists to respond to bird presence
more rapidly than they normally would have without the midfield AR-1 radar because of the
lower than normal hazardous wildlife activity when the study was conducted. However, one
unexpected benefit of the live radar display was the ability to track a flock of starlings across and
then off the opposite end of the airfield after they had been harassed – a result that saved the
biologist time by negating the need to pursue the birds further on foot or in the vehicle (Item 7,
Appendix E).
Display latency was a critical component in the selection of the primary remote display used to
evaluate near real-time situational awareness. A system delay of 10 seconds or more can not
only affect the position agreement between the bird’s true location and what is displayed by the
radar, but it also affects hazard level assessment with respect to the track’s proximity to an
aircrafts flight path. Conversely, the importance of latency diminishes as the need for accurate
real-time geographic position data decreases, as would be the case for long-term monitoring or
when post processing archived data.
Whereas the ramifications of latency matters little to those interested in analyzing archived radar
information, it is important when discussing situational awareness and considering how to expand
the utility of avian radar data to the broadest range of users, especially those responding to a
sense and alert system where communicating a precise location might be expected.
The criteria used to determine when an end-user is alerted to a situation is a question of assessing
aviation bird hazards based on a variety of factors such as the species of bird, flock size and
location, as well as the birds’ movement patterns with respect to critical airspace. Currently,
hazard level determination is something only the human observer can assess, meaning airport
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