MPC Research Reports
Report Details

Title:	Automated Image-Based Aircraft Tracking and Record-Keeping for Utah Airports
Authors:	Mohammad Farhadmanesh, Abbas Rashidi, and Nikola Marković
University:	University of Utah
Publication Date:	Aug 2022
Report #:	MPC-22-476
Project #:	MPC-639
TRID #:	01861035
Keywords:	airport operations, air traffic, computer vision, recordkeeping, traffic surveillance, vehicle detectors, video

Abstract

Airport operational data are necessary for aviation decision-makers to quantitatively prepare airport master plans and fairly distribute national funds throughout the country. These data have other important applications, such as safety and security applications. Interestingly, most airports (i.e., typically general aviation airports) do not have control towers or staff to document the aircraft operations in their airport. That considered, many attempts have been made to automatically record the operations using radio, acoustics, and ADS-B technologies. While these methods come with some advantages, they cannot accurately monitor aircraft operations at non-towered airports due to technological and commercial shortcomings. Therefore, this project attempts to develop intelligent cameras for performing operation count and recognition by using machine learning techniques. The proposed method addresses the issues that existed with the other methods. A camera system is a passive system that does not require cooperative aircraft. Moreover, our data analysis has shown that the proposed vision-based system holds the promise of an accurate system regarding both counting and recognizing the aircraft operations at non-towered airports during busy traffic times in those airports.

How to Cite

Farhadmanesh, Mohammad, Abbas Rashidi, and Nikola Marković. Automated Image-Based Aircraft Tracking and Record-Keeping for Utah Airports, MPC-22-476. North Dakota State University - Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, Fargo: Mountain-Plains Consortium, 2022.