Safe to Takeoff: Strategic Deconfliction with Bird Flight Track Predictions to Prevent Bird Strikes With Aircraft

Over the past decade, the airspace has experienced a concerning surge in collisions between aircraft and birds, mainly due to the growing bird population, air traffic, and use of quieter aircraft. Looking ahead, a significant escalation in bird strikes with aircraft is anticipated, particularly with the advent of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) operations in low-altitude airspace—where the risk probability and impact of such incidents is most pronounced. Despite the growing urgency of the issue, research on aircraft and bird deconfliction models remain remarkably limited. To address this critical gap, our study integrates an LSTM-based predictive model for bird movement with an optimization-based strategic deconfliction model for preventing bird strikes with aircraft during takeoff. Presence of multiple birds with uncertainty in their predicted flight tracks are considered. The proposed approach would allow us to determine the minimum required departure delay to 1) avoid a loss of separation between aircraft and birds during takeoff with 95% confidence and 2) minimize departure delay cost. A publicly available data set on the movement of pigeons is utilized to train the LSTM-based predictive model. The integrated deconfliction model is tested on simulated aircraft departures from Kent State University (1G3) airport under 100 scenarios. Results suggest that this approach can mitigate the risk probability of bird strikes during the takeoff phase of an aircraft.