Welcome to SkyGuard

Safer skies one flight at a time

Our Story

Here at SkyGuard we believe in the safety of everything aviation. We all have a personal connection to this industry, and we would like to keep everyone safe. Specifically, we have designed a way to protect aircraft from the dangers of bird strikes. Nothing like this exists today.

Listen to an anecdote from a pilot we interviewed.

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Bird strikes are dangerous and costly

20,000

bird strikes annually (on average), which is 50-60 a day!

$1.6 billion

annual repair costs for airlines.

$90 million

annual spending to reduce bird strikes in the US.

A bird strike can bring down a plane

When a bird hits a plane, this can be very distressing for pilots. It puts human lives in danger.

The worst thing that can happen is the bird is ingested into the engine causing massive mechanical failure. That's very rare. More commonly, birds hit one part of the plane - the wing or part of the engine - and that sets off a chain reaction also known as cascading failure.

Another huge factor to consider is the cost this has on airlines. The US airlines alone spend around $90 million annually to deter birds from their airports. Current methods can even rely on air traffic control to manually give a warning.

We wanted to find a humane but effective way to deter birds

Most ways today of reducing the effects of bird strikes are stuck on the ground and, in some cases, not particularly effective.

We do it differently. We have designed a piece of equipment that is fitted on the plane. It works automatically to protect the aircraft. The SkyGuard Sonic detects and deters birds from the plane and while the plane is in flight. This reduces the risk of bird strikes, is a humane deterrent, and gives pilots and passengers peace of mind.

Here is a 3D model of our design. It uses transducers that emit a concentrated sonic frequency, up to 2kHz. It also includes a dual imagery camera, visual and thermal, to detect birds in most weather conditions.

Detection

The purpose of the detection module is to increase the efficiency of our transducers – the emitted frequency is highly concentrated and relatively energy expensive, therefore we need to precisely aim at targets as well as be pragmatic about each use. The detection module achieves this by taking a continuous visible and infra-red image feed from our camera system, detecting targets that need to be deterred, and outputting the required action for the gimbal system. Firstly, the image stream is connected to an SBC such as Raspberry Pi, which handles most of the computation. The first step is open cv lens distortion correction, which allows for accurate angle calculations. This image is then sent to the computer vision model, which uses a YOLO framework for fast bounding box detection. These bounding boxes create a target pixel which can be used by a script that uses tan approximations with the FOV and image resolution to calculate the delta yaw and pitch required to aim at the target, whilst accounting for geometric distortion. Lastly, in conjunction with the IMU, the gimbal control board sends instructions directly to the electronic speed controller (ESC), which moves the motors into the correct positions.

Deterrence

At approximately 702mm in length and 600mm in diameter, we have designed a sonic device that would encourage a bird to change its flightpath. The transducers focus a frequency of 1-2KHz and amplify it to the correct volume. These noises, which are emitted directly at the birds, and which they associate with predators, scare and confuse them. They react in the most natural way - they fly away as quickly as possible.

The transducers have hinges attached to both sides of them where they can be targeted inwards or outwards relative to the center, depending on how far away the birds are. The device can be easily attached to any aircraft with external maintenance by being screwed in, along with an adhesive as well if needed.

Moreover, there is an added component surrounding the front plate, which houses the transducers. This is likely to be made from a polymer, which is elastic, and hard wearing to minimize the air gaps between the plate and main hull. The movement of the plate will mainly be with a gyro connected to the center of the hull. The team will code the gyro to move the plate efficiently and to target the birds.

We reduce danger and cut costs

Reduce bird strikes

The SkyGuard Sonic is designed to reduce the chance of a bird strike on every flight it is activated on. It protects the plane rather than just general areas near airports. Our ambition is to ensure the safety of pilots, passengers and the aircraft on all flights.

Reduce costs

The SkyGuard Sonic provides an immediate and effective protection for the plane; it promises to be cheaper than other methods to install and maintain.