Autonomous Runway and Taxiway Blower System

Foreign Object Debris (FOD) accounts for $90M in aircraft damage each year for the US Military, not to mention the potential to take aviatorsĺ lives in catastrophic events. To mitigate the instances of FOD, hundreds of personnel line up to perform daily FOD walks, picking up and discarding potentially dangerous debris; however, even FOD the size of a pea can cause extensive damage to an aircraft engine, but is very hard for the human eye to spot, stop, and collect over acres of hard surface. The ineffective practice of daily FOD walks needs an innovative solution... Essential Aero is proposing a solution to expedite the clearing of FOD by automating a high-powered blower unit, such as Buffalo Turbine Mega, to systematically traverse the aircraft movement areas and blow all debris and water from the hard surfaces. It has been found that the use of a high-powered blower is more efficient and effective than any other method at clearing FOD quickly from large areas.á It also has the capability of clearing the shoulders of runways and taxiways, which is something that the traditional vacuum powered sweepers are unable to do. The proposed system has the potential to significantly decrease the number of personnel needed to mitigate FOD and clear everything, including sand and water from critical hard surfaces Essential Aero will execute a 3-month systematic and intensive feasibility study of our proposed Autonomous Blower Systemáwith the 412th Test Wing (412th TW) to establish the scope of modifications needed for the Phase II effort to adapt the core technology, our autonomous mobile robot platform, to integrate a high-powered blower system and control it programmatically.