CAV Systems to Patent Drone Ice Protection
System
Global supplier of airborne ice
protection solutions, CAV Ice
Protection Limited, has filed for a patent for an anti-icing
solution for small uncrewed aerial systems (sUAS) that it claims could
revolutionise commercial drone use in cold climates.
Engineers at the
County Durham based manufacturer, which is part of the CAV Systems Group,
designed a concept ice protection system (IPS) that prevents ice from building
up on the rotor blades of a drone or sUAS. The company is now looking to bring
the technology solution to market.
With the rise in
popularity of small uncrewed aircraft and drones, ensuring flight operations
are not impacted by poor weather conditions is crucial – especially as the
market is changing from being centred on hobbyists and the defence industry to
wider sectors, such as medical, retail and logistics.
Alex Baty, CAV Systems’ VP of Engineering, said:
This is an industry first, nobody has previously demonstrated an ice protection system that works for this size of aircraft, and we’re not aware that anybody else is working on one.
“We’re ahead of
the curve in that respect and it has attracted the attention of some major
distributors. We know that, globally the use of drones for last mile delivery
is already in action. We hope that our anti-icing system can help to tackle a
significant obstacle to widespread drone usage.
“Our testing has
seen the effects of icing on a propeller will cause a 50% reduction in lift
generation after just three minutes, which underlines the impact that icing can
have on sUAS.
“If sUAS-based
product delivery is to move forward, and become viable across a range of
geographical locations, then ice-protection will need to be factored in, in
order to guarantee safe, efficient and reliable flying.
“There are some
potential niche applications as well: the idea has been explored of using sUAS
to launch flares that would seed clouds with silver oxide particles for weather
modification. Imagine being able to use unmanned aircraft to remove freezing
fog conditions around an airport.”
CAV Systems’
solution works by distributing freezing-point depressant fluid across the
leading edges of a carbon-fibre blade that is typical to smaller aircraft.
Testing of the
system began with a single 18” diameter motor and propeller assembly and
progressed to an Octocopter. Further tests using models with and without the
IPS in an icing wind tunnel to emulate freezing conditions also secured
positive results.
During these tests, the application of the CAV IPS to the propeller saw lift of the model reduce by as little as 10% with small changes to power, compared to the build-up of ice, causing a 50% reduction of ice and doubling of electrical power consumption without the ice protection in place.
Weight is a critical factor: engineers at CAV Systems have brought the weight of the full Octocopter system, including fluid storage, to below 2kg. This figure is around 20% of the total payload of the test model, and the engineers believe this can be brought down by another 25% depending on the aircraft’s total flight plan by further system optimisation.
Baty added:
“The work we have
done, and are continuing to do, around weight reduction will have a huge
bearing on the solution. When a drone has a payload of around 10kg, 500g is a
significant percentage.”
A live icing
flight test is scheduled to commence in March in Colorado in association with a
major regulatory body.
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