Ice protection for UAVs

St Petersburg-based Kronshtadt Group has developed an ice protection system for composite aircraft, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The system expands the airframe’s operational envelopes to more climatic conditions, including Arctic regions. 

Nikolay Dolzhenkov, who leads the UAV-related works at Kronshtadt, says the system is a part of a broader effort to create Russia’s first medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAV.

Standard electro-thermal and fluid-based ice protection systems do not work for MALE vehicles: the former consume too much power, whereas the latter require significant amounts of de-icing liquid on board. Kronhtadt’s system, for its part, is the first electro-vibratory de-icing solution designed in Russia. 

The system removes icing from the leading edges of the airframe’s wings and empennage made of carbon-based composites. It excites elastic waves inside the material. The waves are intense enough for the coat of ice formed on the leading edges to experience tensions which exceed the dynamic strength of ice, but not so intense as to cause structural fatigue of the airframe.

The system has been successfully rig-tested in a climatic test chamber at the Central Aerohydrodynamics Institute (TsAGI).