Wake vortices from large aircraft are a major factor limiting landing and take-off capacity at commercial airports. This has implications for cost, fuel efficiency, and airport operations. One way to increase landing capacity is to reduce the distance between departing and arriving aircraft. Such decrease in distance comes with the risk of unsafe runway conditions in the case that the wake vortices from a preceding aircraft have not sufficiently dissipated. In current airport operations, there are no operational systems for measuring wake vortices. Rather, air traffic control separates aircraft based on rules specified by local and regional aviation administrations.
It is our goal to if infrasound microphones, placed at different positions along a runway can accurately measure the strength and dissipation rate of wake vortices generated by aircraft during take-off and landing.