Evaluation of the Indirect Ice Detection System Performance during the SENS4ICE Flight Test Campaigns

Abstract

Supercooled large droplets (SLD) icing conditions have been the cause of severe aircraft accidents over the last decades. Existing countermeasures, even on modern airplanes, are not necessarily effective against the resulting ice formations, which raises a demand for reliable detection of SLD conditions for safe operations. The EU funded Horizon 2020 project SENS4ICE focused on new ice detection approaches and innovative sensor hybridization to target a fast and reliable SLD-ice detection. The performance-based (indirect) ice detection methodology is key to this approach and based on the changes of airplane flight characteristics under icing influence. This paper provides an overview on the development and implementation of the indirect ice detection (IID) algorithms in SENS4ICE. It provides and discusses exemplary results of the indirect ice detection system tests from the SENS4ICE flight test campaigns in North America (USA, February/March 2023) and Europe (France, April 2023).