Robot Enlisted to Scare Wildlife at Alaska Airport

A doglike, headless robot named “Aurora” has been hired to work at Fairbanks International Airport in Alaska. Her job: to spook the migratory birds and other wildlife that can disrupt operations on and near the tarmac.

The Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities posted a short video on Instagram of robo-dog, explaining in a caption that Aurora would “enhance & augment airport safety and operations.” 

Aurora is about the size of a labrador retriever (minus the head), but will eventually be camouflaged as a coyote or fox, which should make her  even more intimidating than he already is. In the video, the bot scrambles over rocks, climbs stairs, and even dances a bit    while flashing green lights.

“The sole purpose of this is to act as a predator, and allow for us to invoke that response in wildlife without having to use other means,” department program manager Ryan Marlow said at a state senate session last week.

Marlow says Aurora’s stint in Fairbanks is a trial run to test if it can indeed keep migratory birds a safe distance from airplanes; they also want to see how moose and bears react to the robot. Airports around the state currently employ “wildlife service teams” to scare away birds and other wildlife with paintball guns and loud noises. In the 1990s, another trial run involved real live pigs, which were released to gobble up waterfowl eggs near airport runways (it was messy).

Wildlife can be a real threat to aviation safety in Alaska, where there were 92 animal strikes near airports last year, including 10 in Fairbanks. In 1995, a military plane at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Anchorage crashed when it hit a flock of geese, killing 24 people.

The state agencies hope Aurora, which is manufactured by Boston Dynamics and costs about $70,000, will be more cost effective than paying humans to do the job.

Photo credit: Marc Lester / ADN