Introduction of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles into Airport Ground Operations

Abstract

This paper describes a concept of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or rather unmanned aerial systems (UAS) to support airport processes. Three areas of application with potential for an implementation will be presented: Runway inspection, bird control, and a tactical component for future Surface Manager Systems. The paper starts by identifying airport processes, which could benefit from automated services that an un-manned and preferably highly automated aerial vehicle could provide. For that purpose, usable UAV tech-nologies, design of vehicles, and payloads were assessed. Among several basic layouts, electric multirotor technology turned out as a simple, agile, and safe platform for possible airport support functionalities. Limitations for this kind of applications exist in the battery technology, but improvements are likely in the next years to overcome these constraints. The first area of application analysed is the runway inspection. For the UAV application, the scanning of the runway for lost objects possibly harming aircraft was considered in the concept. The second UAS application is an alternative method for controlling bird populations on airports. In combination with payloads of droppable pyrotechnical cartridges and strong lasers, the birds could sustainable be scared off. The third application described is a tactical component of a high-level advanced surface movement guidance and control system (SMAN). To support pilots during the taxiing process, an UAS can be used to guide the aircraft along the taxi route. Based on requirements derived from this application, a sample UAV configuration is described with a signalling LED matrix device mounted to the vehicle through a folding mechanism