Airports
Rome's Vertiport Tests AI-Powered Bird Monitoring System
Artificial intelligence could protect eVTOL aircraft from birds
A view of the UrbanV vertiport in Rome
UrbanV and The Edge Company are using Italy's first test vertiport in Rome to explore the efficacy of an AI-powered bird strike mitigation system for eVTOL air taxi operations.

To keep eVTOL air taxis safe from bird strikes, ground infrastructure developer UrbanV has teamed up with artificial intelligence specialist The Edge Company to test an automated bird monitoring system on a vertiport facility at Rome–Leonardo da Vinci Fiumicino International Airport.

Originally designed to combat bird strikes at airports, The Edge Company’s bird concentration monitoring system (BCMS) employs a set of cameras and data processors to identify, track, count, and classify birds as well as drones within a 2-kilometer radius in real time. It uses artificial intelligence to determine whether a non-cooperative obstacle poses a risk to flight operations and automatically notifies the relevant authorities.