CONTINUUM DYNAMICS INC — National Aeronautics and Space Administration SBIR Phase I: A1

Description

<p>New classes of aircraft, providing personal, on-demand mobility, are under development and are poised to revolutionize short-duration air travel.&nbsp; The impetus for this work comes from advances in electronics and controls, and increases in electric motor power densities.&nbsp; As these aircraft are integrated into the transportation system, they will encounter icing conditions that may challenge the design performance of these vehicles.&nbsp; This effort will map a patented algorithmic icing detection scheme, previously developed for use on the Navy&rsquo;s V-22 Osprey tiltrotor, to the propeller/rotor systems for this category of air vehicle, with extensions for using measurements on the electric motor itself to infer both icing level and icing growth during flight operations.&nbsp; By focusing the detection filter to the lift/propulsion subsystem, the detection algorithm may be hosted directly within the motor control processor electronics, thus allowing for distributed icing sensing concomitant with such vehicle&rsquo;s distributed propulsion configurations.&nbsp; As these VTOL vehicles are dominated by lifting propeller/rotors, the determination of the level of icing on this important component for these aircraft will enhance safety and may be used for icing mitigation and/or vehicle flight guidance.&nbsp; The proposed workplan includes a test demonstration of the technology on a representative lift/propulsion subsystem using simulated icing shapes on the lifting surfaces.</p>