Abstract: A vehicle for detecting foreign object debris (FOD) disposed on a runway or taxiway, the vehicle comprising an array of forward-facing cameras configured to capture images of the runway or taxiway and transmit the images to FOD detection circuitry, each forwarding-facing camera being a camera oriented such that a respective dot product arising between the camera's optical axis and the forward direction is greater than zero, the array being arranged such that, when in use: a respective azimuthal angle arising between each forward-facing camera's optical axis and the forward direction does not exceed a limiting value, the azimuthal angle between an extremal forward-facing camera's optical axis and the forward direction being equal to the limiting value, and each forward-facing camera's imaging plane is positioned such that its displacement along the forward direction is at least a threshold distance away from its respective forward-facing camera.

Abstract: The present disclosure relates to an object detection unit for detecting the presence of foreign object debris, FOD, on a runway, taxiway or apron surface, the object detection unit comprising a processor, the object detection unit configured to: receive an image taken by a camera, the image comprising at least part of the runway surface, taxiway surface or apron surface, input the image to a zero-shot object detection model, wherein the zero-shot object detection model is configured to output co-ordinates of a bounding box around a candidate FOD in the image and determine a likelihood that FOD is present in the bounding box; obtain, from the zero-shot object detection model, co-ordinates of a bounding box around a candidate FOD in the image and a likelihood that the candidate FOD is foreign object debris; and determine if the likelihood exceeds a threshold value.