The drone mimics a peregrine falcon, "the most world-renowned and feared aerial predators," according to president and CEO Jordan Cicoria.We'll talk about how a drone that looks like a falcon is protecting wildlife in the oilsands.on Friday. "It doesn't have any propellers, so we're really using it for biomimicry and tying into that fight-or-flight response."
The robotic bird, or Robird, keeps the birds from landing, intercepting them "before they get too close to even want to consider landing," Cicoria said. The next step is to move to a semi-autonomous version with a pilot operating a number of drones instead of just one, he said. But with the funding, the company hopes to fully automate the drone, connecting it with artificial intelligence and machine learning for visual detection and tracking, Cicoria said.According to research by Colleen Cassady St. Clair, professor of biological sciences at the University of Alberta, 20,000 birds land on the tailings ponds annually.
So, artifical predators to stress wildlife away from the toxic mess, 'forever', and reduce the pressure to clean up the mess and dent their profit margins....
Can they scare off cuckoos? In Ottawa, we have some of these parasitic birds who destroy eggs in other people's nests to lay their own.