Bested 62 Other Challengers With Runway Safety, Airport Management Projects 

Four teams from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University’s Daytona Beach, Fla., Campus have outperformed the 62 other colleges and more than 1,200 other students at the recent 2012-2013 FAA Design Competition for Universities. The annual competition, which challenges U.S. college students to find innovative solutions to real-world airport and runway safety issues, included 244 submitted design proposals in six categories.

The Embry-Riddle teams consisting of Human Factors students finished No. 1 and No. 2 in the category of Runway Safety, No. 1 in Airport Management & Planning and No. 3 in Airport Operation & Maintenance. “This competition gives our students the opportunity to learn about and gain experience researching a problem, designing a novel solution, working as a team under time pressure and writing a professional-quality technical report,” said Dr. Kelly Neville, an associate professor of Human Factors and Systems who co-advised the team along with Marty Lauth, an associate professor of Applied Aviation Sciences . “At the same time, they’re learning about a new domain, such as runway safety. The first-place teams additionally gain valuable experience networking and presenting their work at the professional conferences they’re invited to attend.”
 
First Place

• Category: Airport Management & Planning
• Project Title: eAPT: The Electronic Airport Planning Tool
• Project Description: The team’s proposed map-based tool combines airport pavement information with aircraft specifications in SMART board technology to help airport operators accurately and efficiently create plans for complicated airport events such as air shows.
• Student Team Members: Amanda Peterson, Marcus Peterson, Andrew Reinlieb, Stephen Tignor, Nathalie Vazquez, Hemali Verani and Michael Vincent. 

First Place

• Category: Runway Safety, Runway Incursions & Runway Excursions
• Project Title: INSPIRE: Keeping You on Track
• Project Description: The team designed an Intuitive Navigation System for the Prevention of Incursions in the Runway Environment (INSPIRE) to serve as a situational awareness aid that supports heads-up, eyes-out taxi operations.
• Student Team Members: Sarah Cullen, N’diaye Diabira, Michael Fehlinger, Paul Gillett, Jason Goodman and Breanna Goring.

Second Place

• Category: Runway Safety, Runway Incursions & Runway Excursions
• Project Title: AIRIP: Advanced Integrated Runway Incursion Prevention
• Project Description: AIRIP would augment current runway safety systems by instantaneously broadcasting radio alerts to aircraft at risk in the runway environment, allowing quicker initiation of evasive action.
• Student Team Members: Thomas Harter, Chelsea Iwig, Devin Liskey, Chloe Liu, Will Lively and Taylor Martin.

Third Place

• Category: Airport Operation & Maintenance
• Project Title: Illuminating the Night Sky
• Project Description: The team proposes making all LED obstruction lighting in the national airspace system compatible with night vision goggles, allowing pilots to use aided vision for takeoffs, landings and navigation.
• Student Team Members: Tara Baseil, Anne-Claire Blondeau, Chris Bryan and Olivia Crowe.

The first-place teams will receive their awards and present their design projects at FAA Headquarters on July 17. In addition, they will discuss their work at the Airport Consultants Council’s Transportation Security Administration Summer Series Workshop on July 18.

FMI: http://FAADesignCompetition.odu.edu, www.erau.edu