Last year thousands of flights were brought to a standstill for days on end when Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted, scattering thick clouds of ash over much of Europe. To prevent a similar recurrence of events, Dr. Fred Prata of the Norwegian Institute of Air Research has developed a technology aimed at alerting pilots of the presence of ash in the air.
Prata’s system, funded by the British airline EasyJet and known as the Airborne Volcanic Object Imaging Detector (AVOID), relies on two thermal infrared cameras to detect the presence of silicate ash particles in front of an aircraft. At an altitude of 33,000 feet, the system can reportedly detect silicates up to 100 km away, allowing some time for pilots to maneuver around it.
