Airport adds day/night camera to runway radar

Foreign objects as seemingly innocuous as a bolt, discarded plastic bag, or clamshell on the runway can cause serious damage to aircraft and pose a potential safety risk. Each year, loose objects on airport runways, taxiways, and aprons cost the global aviation industry an estimated $12 billion.

Vancouver International Airport has become the first commercial airport to install a day-and-night camera to its existing Tarsier Foreign Object Debris radar detection system, developed by QinetiQ (Farnborough, UK; www.qinetiq.com). The new camera will upgrade the airport’s 24-hour automated runway debris detection system in all weather conditions by providing visual confirmation of any potentially dangerous objects on the runway. The camera’s illuminator helps produce images of all kinds of debris in any light level.

The networked high-frequency, high-resolution radars continuously sweep the runway. When debris is detected, an alarm is triggered in the airport’s operations center, where the user display highlights the object’s location. The camera zooms in, sending a live image for visual confirmation and the object’s GPS coordinates are provided, enabling accurate location and retrieval of the object.