Ascend Avian Radar Network

ended

An estimated 20.000 collisions between aircrafts and birds are expected to happen in Europe in 2019. Resulting in massive costs and delays for passengers, airlines, and airports. We can remember serious accidents as the “Miracle on the Hudson” and, recently, the Ethiopian Airlines crash resulting in 157 fatalities, where U.S. aviation authorities regard a collision with one or more birds as the most likely reason for the MCAS sensor failure that lead to the crash. In the project, AscendXYZ will mature the advanced prototype solutions developed under European Space Agency (ESA) Business Applications program into market-ready service performing radar hazard measurements of bird activity and make the information available to the relevant industry stakeholders (Airlines, Pilots, Air Navigation Service Providers and Airports). The technology will reshape bird strike prevention by facilitating a plethora of data to airlines on bird activity nearby airports – creating for the first time in the industry a network of connected systems. Participating in this pan-European and global project are some of the largest airlines and airports in the world. The expected project outcome is a reduction in the number of bird strikes, leading to a significant improvement of flight safety as well as a positive business impact for the airlines to the benefit of all industry stakeholders and passengers.