Atmospheric Icing Sensors - An Insight

To design a new atmospheric icing sensor, it is important to understand the existing atmospheric ice detection/measurement techniques. It is found that atmospheric icing sensors, which are capable of delivering maximum information are based upon direct measurement of the physical properties (electrical or mechanical) of atmospheric ice. Most of the ice detection methods are not able to deliver combined information about atmospheric ice type, its thickness and its rate simultaneously (very important factors for ice mitigation and design purposes). Based upon this study, it is found that sensors based upon the application of complex relative permittivity variations for different types of atmospheric ice at different ambient conditions offer good potential to detect atmospheric ice type, thickness and rate with minimum loading errors (effects of freezing ambient environment) due to their capacitive nature. This indicates that sensors based on capacitive and impedance measurement techniques are mostly suitable for the development of robust ice measurement sensors.