NSF Award
2313310
Unmanned-Aerial-Vehicles (UAVs), also known as Drones, is one of the most remarkable developments in the aviation community with emerging civilian and military applications. Unlike conventional, large-sized, manned aircraft cruising at high altitudes, light-weighted UAVs are designed specifically to fly in low-altitude airspace, thus, are much more vulnerable to the impacts of icing weather such as frozen rain, snow, and sleet. Current UAV icing avoidance strategy is either keeping UAVs on the ground or modifying their flight paths, thereby, greatly reducing the UAV operation capability in cold climate. This is particularly troubling for life-saving search & rescue operations and military UAV applications, in which icing conditions would lead to aborted missions and loss of crucial tactical capabilities. This project aims to improve our understanding about the underlying UAV icing physics and to develop novel anti-/de-icing strategies for assured UAV flight safety in all weather conditions. The project will also encompass significant educational activities, including a multi-year graduate/undergraduate research program, development of new teaching modules, and an outreach program for local K-12 students with a focus of promoting the participation of female students and those from under-represented minority (URM) groups.<br/><br/>The goal of this project is to conduct a fundamental study to characterize the important micro-physical processes (i.e., unsteady heat transfer, transient surface water runback, and dynamic ice accretion process) pertinent to UAV inflight icing phenomena. The effects of the surface properties (e.g., hydrophobicity and thermal conductivity) on the dynamic ice accretion process over UAV wings and rotating propellers will be evaluated systematically. An explorative study will be performed to develop a new class of low-power and effective strategies for UAV inflight icing mitigation. A comprehensive outdoor flight test campaign will also be conducted to fly experimental UAVs in atmospheric icing weather (e.g., snow, frozen rain, and sleet) to fill the knowledge gaps between the idealized lab experiments and realistic UAV inflight icing process. The proposed research would significantly improve our understanding about the underlying UAV icing physics. It will also lead to a new class of low-power and effective anti-/de-icing strategies for assured UAV flight safety in all weather conditions, which are very critical to life-saving search & rescue operations and military UAV applications of America’s defense and national security concerns.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
