We’re proud to announce that Hengtian recently has been selected by Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport (Hangzhou Airport) to deploy a cutting-edge, AI-driven visual FOD detection and analysis system, setting a new industry standard for runway safety and airfield intelligence. Hangzhou Airport is one of the busiest airports of the world, with passenger traffic ranked among the top 10 in China and the top 50 globally.
To airports worldwide, from major international hubs serving millions to remote community airstrips, managing FOD (Foreign Object Debris) is a paramount priority for flight safety and a core responsibility of airport management. FOD refers to objects such as plastic bags or metal fragments within the movement area that pose potential threats to aircraft during takeoff and landing. Often small and difficult to detect with standard systems, FOD remains a persistent challenge. Currently, most advanced airports have implemented some level of automated FOD detection, however identifying smaller debris still largely depends on manual efforts, which present limitations in processing efficiency and real-time monitoring capabilities, making it increasingly challenging for airports under growing operational pressures.
A Leap Forward in Smart Aviation
Aligned with the Civil Aviation Administration of China’s vision for smart civil aviation development, especially on intelligent airfield monitoring, in-field video analytics, and smart FOD detection, the launch of the FOD detection and analysis system at Hangzhou Airport is both a critical measure to enhance safety management standards and a significant practice in actively responding to the national smart civil aviation strategy.
For this landmark project, Hengtian will leverage a suite of advanced technologies—including AI visual recognition, multi-source data fusion, and super-resolution reconstruction—to transform the airport’s existing surveillance infrastructure into a comprehensive, all-weather intelligent FOD detection system. By automating the entire process from identification to dispatch coordination and integrating FOD data with personnel and flight information, the system enables optimized resource scheduling, data-driven operational management, and enhanced risk control, ensuring auto-detection within milliseconds while cutting manual costs by an estimated 80%.
How the System Works: Smarter, Faster, Safer
01. Comprehensive Real-Time Airfield Surveillance:
Integrating various image intelligence analysis technologies—such as frame differencing, filtering algorithms for preprocessing, along with object detection and recognition—the system establishes monitoring capabilities at both the image level and pixel level for the airfield. It can automatically identify tiny foreign objects over a hundred meters away. By continuously capturing baseline frames and performing pixel-level comparisons with real-time frames, the system can detect anomalous objects within milliseconds, constructing a highly sensitive real-time monitoring network.
02. Intelligent Accuracy Optimization:
To minimize false alarms and missed detections caused by factors like lighting, shadows, people, and vehicles, the project will employ multiple strategies—including intelligent zoning, environmental disturbance adaptation, and multi-source video cross-verification—to enhance identification accuracy. Simultaneously, the AI models are capable of continuous learning from the airport’s real-time environment, constantly optimizing the recognition accuracy rate.
03. Rapid and Precise Dispatch:
By utilizing neural network technology combined with high-precision differential positioning, the system can comprehensively consider factors such as personnel location, workload, and response capacity to automatically calculate the optimal dispatch strategy. It quickly assigns the nearest available personnel and plans the most efficient response route, significantly improving dispatch efficiency and precision.
04. Data-Intelligence Driven Management:
This platform integrates core functions such as FOD distribution visualization, risk rating, traceability tracking, personnel workload statistics, and shift scheduling optimization. It establishes a new airfield management system that is visible, controllable, measurable, and predictive.
With a strong technical foundation and a track record of delivering high-impact solutions, Hengtian is committed to implementing this project with precision and excellence—enhancing both safety and operational performance at one of China’s key aviation hubs.
As we continue to pioneer the real-world application of AI across industries, our mission extends beyond this achievement. Through a sustainable pipeline of cutting-edge solutions, we are catalyzing the industry’s transition into a fully digital and intelligent future.
