AIFORD stands for Advance Intelligent Foreign Object Range Detector. The aim of this product is to provide a solution to the problem of expensive automated scanning in airports. The primary focus was India’s challenges that come in this aspect. Few facts about India’s airports such as Mumbai airport sees over 1000 movements per day over its runway, Delhi airport has employees who have the job to scare away birds. The above facts show the importance of our product. Our initial analysis has brought to our notice that about 41% of bird strikes occur while the plane is on the runway, from total strikes up to 50% occur due to birds sitting on the runway. This report signifies the need and also gives us an estimation that with automated detection this strikes could be reduced to 20%. For 10000 aircraft movements, there are 2.1 bird strikes of which 0.7 occur on the runway. Thus, the average direct cost will be approximately $47000 per 10k.

When it comes to FOD (Foreign Object Detection), they arise due to the collection of parts from the falling planes while migrating from ramp area to runway. FOD strikes are considered to be most common and expensive due to the frequency of occurrence of such events. This FOD accumulation is because of many factors such as the wear and tear of machines, old machine parts. The Dangerous FOD is debris which is at least 2cm in size, with 80% greater than 10g/13cm. For 10000 aircraft movements, there are 4.0 FOD strikes of which 2.1 strikes occur on the runway. Thus, the average direct cost will be approximate of $32000 per 10k.

The solution to this FOD and Bird Strike problem is automated scanning since it brings about 60x improvement. This answer gives us robust performance with a particular consideration regarding cost efficiency. The distinguishing parameter in our solution is New passive thermal imaging technology, 3D LIDAR. Thermal technology is used to give better images in fog. When new debris is placed in the runway, alerts are sent. The self-contained detector unit is mounted at a height up to 0.65m. When it comes to thermal, each of this detector is placed at every 60m on each side of the runway. For 3D LIDAR, one detector unit is placed every 120-180m. The characteristics in this product are the feasibility, wireless communication, reduced installation cost.