News release

From: The Royal Society

Light tuned to the avian eye elicits early detection and escape from an approaching aircraft

Royal Society Open Science

Bird-aircraft collisions can lead to human and bird mortality and cause substantial financial damage. One proposed solution to mitigate collisions is to equip aircraft with lights highly visible to the avian visual system. Herein, we conducted an experiment where we approached Canada geese, a species regularly involved in damaging collisions, with a drone equipped with a light onboard salient to the visual physiology of Canada geese. Approaches with the light on led to longer detection and escape distances, irrespective of changes in drone altitude. Our findings demonstrate the utility of developing species-specific lighting technology to not only mitigate bird-aircraft collisions, but also in preventing bird-collisions with wind turbines, solar facilities, and buildings.