Case Study: Electronic Navigation Research Institute (ENRI) develops airport runway debris detection with National Instruments LabVIEW and FlexRIO

Creating an Airport Runway Foreign Object Debris Detection System Based on Millimeter-Wave Radar

Electronic Navigation Research Institute (ENRI), a national research and development agency, needed to develop a prototype system for detecting foreign object debris (FOD) on airport runways. The challenge was to analyze massive amounts of high-resolution millimeter-wave radar data in real time to identify small objects, a task that required processing over 1.2 GB/s of data per radar with complex signal processing, all under a very tight development schedule.

Using National Instruments' LabVIEW software, PXI platform, and FlexRIO FPGA hardware, ENRI built a high-performance signal processing circuit. The solution enabled real-time FFT calculations and data transfer with precise hardware synchronization. This approach reduced development time by 90 percent compared to conventional programming methods, allowing the researchers to rapidly construct and modify the prototype system on a limited budget. National Instruments' tools were crucial for achieving the high-data throughput and sensitivity required for the successful FOD detection radar prototype.

Electronic Navigation Research Institute (ENRI)

Shunichi Futatsumori

Electronic Navigation Research Institute (ENRI)