M.Sc. Aviation Safety Project Proposal: Enhancing Airport Safety UAVs

This project proposal addresses the growing concern of airport safety against drones (unmanned aerial vehicles). It highlights the potential misuse of drones for terrorism and safety hazards due to illegal drone operations within airport areas. The proposal includes a literature review, outlining limited existing research due to the novelty of the problem. It states the project's objectives, which include determining the threats associated with illegal drone operations, exploring solutions for prevention, and investigating relevant anti-drone technologies. The proposed research method is qualitative, involving data collection from published sources and interviews with airport personnel. The expected outcomes include a detailed research report on combating illegal drone operations and enhancing airport security. A research plan with a timeline is also included.

Running Head: PROJECT PROPOSAL
Project Proposal: Airport Safety against Drones (or) Unmanned Aerial
Vehicles (UAV)
Name of the Student
Name of the University

1PROJECT PROPOSAL
Table of Contents
Proposal Summary...........................................................................................................................2
Literature Review............................................................................................................................3
Objectives........................................................................................................................................4
Project Outcomes.............................................................................................................................5
Reason for Interest in the Project.....................................................................................................5
Key Questions to Answer in the Project..........................................................................................5
Research Method.............................................................................................................................6
Primary and Secondary Data Sources..............................................................................................8
Research Plan...................................................................................................................................8
References......................................................................................................................................12

2PROJECT PROPOSAL
Proposal Summary
The suggested work on this project is based on the protection of airport against drones or
unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). This particular problem has risen considerably in the last few
months and these drones can be misused as effective tools for terrorism. Since the ground
security at most of the airports is extremely strong, the terrorists are now utilizing drones for
entering into the airport area and check out the details of the airport for planning future terrorist
activities. Thus these drones are causing major security issues for the airports around the world
through which millions of people land or board the planes. Another major concern regarding this
is the safety issue that arises from the illegal operations of the drones inside the airport area.
According to the authority at the Heathrow Airport in England, several drones have disrupted the
flight services as the collision with the drones may force the plane for emergency landing or even
crash if there is a critical damage to the structure. As per some recent incidents in Syria, four
Russian military airport bases were bombed through unmanned aerial vehicles carrying
explosives. Thus it can be clearly understood that although the drones find multiple uses, they
are also massive threats to the airports both in terms of security and safety.
Most of the airport authorities around the world have started to develop suitable solutions
to prevent the illegal drones from entering into the airport area. The authority of John Lennon
Airport has been developing certain anti-drone equipments that will prevent the operation of any
illegal drones within the vicinity of the airport although details regarding the equipments have
not been revealed due to security reasons.
In the last few months, the drone sightings around some of Europe’s major airports have
increased at an alarming rate and the authorities are constantly trying to combat the threats by

3PROJECT PROPOSAL
developing new technologies like anti-drone equipments, drone guns and others. However, the
drone technology is also undergoing technical upgrades at a lightning pace and the drone
operators are using more and more advanced technologies to make the drones avoid any anti-
drone restriction and enter into the airport area. In addition, there are also reports of various
flights having to maneuver around the drone paths in order to avoid damage on the aircraft.
This problem is relatively new and hence, there are not many extensive studies regarding
how to solve this problem and what technologies can be utilized to prevent the illegal drones
from entering the vicinity of the airport. This report is used to propose a detailed research study
regarding the safety of the airports against the drones (unmanned aerial vehicles) and looks to
find suitable solutions that will provide a new roadmap regarding this field of technical research.
Literature Review
As specified in the proposal overview, there has been very limited work on this research
work and hence, very few data can be found from the existing literature. This is mainly because
the problem highlighted in this research proposal is relatively new and research works are still
ongoing to find suitable solutions.
According to Hubbard et al. (2017), unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is a very useful
technology that can be used for various purposes like surveillance, wireless communication and
others. As a result, the uses of drones have increased considerably throughout the world by
various government agencies, national defenses and others. The production of drones has
become widespread and the technical details and other information can be easily known. Thus
the production of drones is now not only limited to government agencies but also illegal agencies
and organizations that might use the drones for unethical and illegal purposes.

4PROJECT PROPOSAL
Authors Vattapparamban et al. (2016) have highlighted that the illegal use of the drones
have increased to such an extent that the terrorist organizations are also using them to perform
illegal operations like collection of information from places that have very heavy ground security
and entering manually is not possible. For instance, there are numerous drone sightings reported
in various important airports in Europe that have been connected with the terrorists.
Bieber et al. (2016) expressed similar concern regarding the drone technology and have
also reported various safety issues that may rise from the operation of drones inside airport
premises. Citing various reported data, the authors said that due to the strong build of the drones,
they can cause significant damage on the aircrafts. Even the slightest of damages can result in
emergency landing or crashing of the airports. Thus, the authors have called out the airport
authorities to develop suitable technologies for combating the illegal operations of drones inside
the airport premises.
Wolf (2017) provided a few possible solutions that can be applied in order to combat the
illegal drones around the airport premises. According to the author, an anti-drone radar can be
utilized that will be able to detect drones over large distances. After detection, special signals can
be sent to the drones to deactivate its internal wireless network to prevent the signals from the
remote drone operators. The author has also emphasized on the use of drone guns that have been
recently developed to gun down the illegal drones.
Objectives
The main objectives of the research are as follows.

5PROJECT PROPOSAL
 To determine the threats associated with the illegal operations of drones in the
airport premises
 To determine possible solutions to prevent the drones from entering into the
vicinity of airports
 To explore relevant technologies that are available for anti-drone actions
Project Outcomes
The project outcomes will mainly involve detailed research report on combating illegal
drone operations and help in enforcing security and safety of the airports. The project outcome
will also discuss relevant technologies that are utilized to detect and destroy any illegal drones
that are trying to intrude into the airport premises.
Reason for Interest in the Project
The main reason behind the interest in the project is that this is a very new topic and there
are not many previous research activities undertaken. Thus, the research can be started from
almost the scratch and a suitable foundation can be created for future research.
Key Questions to Answer in the Project
Key questions to answer in the project include the following.
 How do the illegal drones affect the safety and security at the airports?
 What are the available technologies that can be utilized to prevent the drone
operations near and around the airports?

6PROJECT PROPOSAL
 What are the current measures taken by airports to prevent the drones near the
airports?
 What future technologies can be developed for more efficient handling of the
situation?
Research Method
Generally, research method is of two main types – qualitative and quantitative.
Qualitative research focuses on the concepts, technical details, new ideas, reasons, opinions and
others regarding a particular topic. This research is mainly conducted using data from various
secondary sources as well as primary sources (interview data conducted by the researcher).
Quantitative research focuses on the analysis of statistical data related to the topic of the
research. This is generally useful when there are statistical data to be analyzed and presented as
outcomes. The data is collected from various reports published by organizations, questionnaire
survey and others.
The proposed research method for this study is qualitative in nature. This is mainly
because this research involves less statistical data and more of technical and qualitative data. The
entire research will mainly focus on the technical details regarding anti-drone process that will
help to protect the security and safety of the airports. While there has been significant progress in
this particular field of research in the last few months, there has not been many published works
regarding this topic. Thus the information is extremely limited for reference and the entire
research process has to be done based on mostly assumptions and some relevant data that are
published by the researchers. Since this is qualitative research method, the data will be collected
from the published and reliable sources and in order to find the primary data, a detailed interview

7PROJECT PROPOSAL
will be conducted among 10 significant personnel who are involved in various airport authorities
and have sufficient knowledge on the ongoing anti-drone research. In the interview, there will be
around 15-20 questions specific to the anti-drone technologies and how the authorities are
planning to protect the safety and security of the airports. The data from the interview transcripts
will provide sufficient information for initial research although this data will be limited due to
lack of scope of interviewing more managers around the world. However, this data will be
sufficient for setting the initial roadmap for further future research that can be conducted in more
detail and with a broader scope.
This research focuses on the technologies that can be utilized to prevent the entry of the
drones within the vicinity of the airports. Thus, the research requires the study of the relevant
anti-drone technologies that can be effectively used to detect and prevent the drones from free
movement around the airport. Hence, only qualitative data is required to reach the necessary
outcomes in the project. Based on the research requirements, relevant details have been specified
in the latter parts of this proposal.
Since this particular research does not require any detailed statistical data, the
quantitative research method is not suitable for this project. Thus, only qualitative research will
be used along with both primary and secondary data for analysis. However, it is to be noted that
the secondary is extremely limited and not sufficient to construct a strong foundation of the
research topic and hence, the research mostly relies on the primary data only.

8PROJECT PROPOSAL
Primary and Secondary Data Sources
The primary data source for this research is the interview transcript that will be developed
from the interview of 10 different managers who are actively involved in some important airports
combating illegal operation of drones.
Research Plan
A detailed research plan along with the proposed timeline is shown in the following table.
Task Name Duration Start Finish Predecessors
Proposed Research Plan 107 days Mon 3/4/19 Tue 7/30/19
Initiation of Research 15 days Mon 3/4/19 Fri 3/22/19
Analysis of the Research
Topic Proposed
3 days Mon 3/4/19 Wed 3/6/19
Approval of Research
Topic from Supervisor
2 days Thu 3/7/19 Fri 3/8/19 2
Prepare Research Proposal
with Relevant Details
5 days Mon 3/11/19 Fri 3/15/19 3,2
Development of Research
Framework
2 days Mon 3/18/19 Tue 3/19/19 4,2

9PROJECT PROPOSAL
Submission and Approval
of the Proposal
3 days Wed 3/20/19 Fri 3/22/19 5,4
Research Planning 15 days Mon 3/25/19 Fri 4/12/19
Form the Team for
Research
2 days Mon 3/25/19 Tue 3/26/19 6
Detailed Analysis of the
Research Topic and Study
Requirements
2 days Wed 3/27/19 Thu 3/28/19 6,8
Finalize Research
Questions
2 days Fri 3/29/19 Mon 4/1/19 8,9
Identify Scope of Research 2 days Tue 4/2/19 Wed 4/3/19 10
Estimate Appropriate
Research Timeline
2 days Thu 4/4/19 Fri 4/5/19 10,11
Allocation of Resources
and Time for the Research
3 days Mon 4/8/19 Wed 4/10/19 10,11,12
Start the Research 2 days Thu 4/11/19 Fri 4/12/19 13
Research Development 33 days Mon 4/15/19 Wed 5/29/19

10PROJECT PROPOSAL
Determine the Limitations
of the Research
2 days Mon 4/15/19 Tue 4/16/19 13,14
Access to Necessary Media 2 days Wed 4/17/19 Thu 4/18/19 13,16
Access to Online Library 2 days Wed 4/17/19 Thu 4/18/19 13,16
Select Secondary Data
Sources
2 days Fri 4/19/19 Mon 4/22/19 13,17,18
Literature Review 10 days Tue 4/23/19 Mon 5/6/19 19
Conduct Interview for
Primary Data
15 days Tue 5/7/19 Mon 5/27/19 19,20
Collate All Primary and
Secondary Data
2 days Tue 5/28/19 Wed 5/29/19 21
Data Analysis 20 days Thu 5/30/19 Wed 6/26/19
Analysis of Primary Data 10 days Thu 5/30/19 Wed 6/12/19 21,22
Analysis of Secondary
Data
10 days Thu 6/13/19 Wed 6/26/19 24
Research Evaluation 9 days Thu 6/27/19 Tue 7/9/19
Evaluation of Data 4 days Thu 6/27/19 Tue 7/2/19 21,22,23,24
Reflection on Research 2 days Wed 7/3/19 Thu 7/4/19 27

11PROJECT PROPOSAL
Undertaken
Documentation of Details
of the Research
3 days Wed 7/3/19 Fri 7/5/19 27
Publish Research
Outcomes
2 days Mon 7/8/19 Tue 7/9/19 29,28
Research Closure 15 days Wed 7/10/19 Tue 7/30/19
Complete All Activities in
Research
2 days Wed 7/10/19 Thu 7/11/19 30
Prepare Final Research
Report
10 days Fri 7/12/19 Thu 7/25/19 32
Validation of the Research
and Learning
2 days Fri 7/26/19 Mon 7/29/19 33
Team Sign Off 1 day Tue 7/30/19 Tue 7/30/19 34

12PROJECT PROPOSAL
References
Bieber, P., Seguin, C., Louis, V. and Many, F., 2016. Model Based Safety Assessment of
Concept of Operations for Drones. 2E-Etudes probabilistes de sûreté 2.
Hubbard, S., Pak, A., Gu, Y. and Jin, Y., 2017. UAS to support airport safety and operations:
opportunities and challenges. Journal of unmanned vehicle systems, 6(1), pp.1-17.
Vattapparamban, E., Güvenç, İ., Yurekli, A.İ., Akkaya, K. and Uluağaç, S., 2016, September.
Drones for smart cities: Issues in cybersecurity, privacy, and public safety. In Wireless
Communications and Mobile computing Conference (IWCMC), 2016 International (pp. 216-
221). IEEE.
Wolf, H.G., 2017. Drones: Safety risk management for the next evolution of flight. Routledge.