Birds have a regretful riding habit of flying directly into big machines , like planes or wind turbine . This phenomenon , dubbed “ birdstrike , ” usually ends , well … badly for our feathered friends . But the key to saving these condemn skirt could be another bird .
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory hasrecruiteda 15 - year - old peregrine falcon named Houdini to vanish near the Colorado Rockies while seize a twinkling private road - sized GPS . Why ?
Although his usual spear is halftime entertainment at Air Force football games , Houdini ’s exploits for NREL could lead to serious advancements in microwave radar technology — advancements could aid research worker at the National Wind Technology Center keep better course of any wildlife flirting with death - by - wind turbine .
NREL news feature of speech : The ( Scientific ) Flight of the Falcon , teach radio detection and ranging to spot birds – http://t.co/VRe09M91Dspic.twitter.com/JpCT3gPLS5
— NREL ( @NREL)April 22 , 2015
Avian scouts like Houdini could be more useful thandronesto accomplish this goal , as a Bronx cheer is the best thing we can utilize to predict other birds ’ movement . ( The drones do n’t move about in the airwave the same fashion real birds do , which is why Houdini has the boundary . )
NREL hopes to build a database with this flight blueprint information that allows the folks at the wind works to be alarm to nearby Bronx cheer , and can stop the brand before the birds get too skinny .
The current alternative , which NREL says is mandate in many places ? Plop somebody at the industrial plant to be the 24/7 bird lookout man .
[ National Renewable Energy Laboratory ]
range of a function : Getty
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