Published in the Journal of Raptor Research, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Used to Assess Performance of Automated Detection and Audio Deterrent System for Reducing Wind-Turbine Collision Risk for Golden Eagles evaluates the performance of DTBird – an automated detection and audio deterrent system designed to discourage birds from approaching spinning wind turbines – at two commercial facilities in California and Washington, USA. DTBird’s detection and deterrent-triggering functions were evaluated using fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) as eagle surrogates in experimental flight trials.
REWI was appointed as the prime awardee of DOE award number DE-EE000788. Project Partners included: Avangrid, EDF Renewables North America, H.T. Harvey & Associates, Liquen, PacifiCorp, Portland General Electric Company (PGE), Puget Sound Energy, Inc. (PSE), and Vestas American Wind Technology.