Calibration of Ice Detection and Liquid Water Content Sensor for Unmanned Aircraft Systems in Low Altitude Environments

With the increasing usage of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) in cold environments, icing hazards have become more prominent, especially for weather applications in low altitude and low velocity regimes. This has created a need for accurate and reliable ice detection and Liquid Water Content (LWC) sensors for smaller aircraft systems. Work has been done to implement icing sensors into UAS and explore the physics behind the UAS icing flow regime. However, further research is required to implement code capable of calculating the Nusselt Number and Frossling Number for the ice detection and LWC sensors. To validate heat transfer behaviors and map the droplet behaviors, sets of calibration experiments are being conducted in Oklahoma State University wind tunnels which have been modified to simulate dry, moist, hot and cold environments.