Geoffrey Karli
Small rotor test stand covered in ice inside the AERTS icing chamber
All projects

Small eVTOL rotor icing detection

Detecting rotor icing from motor-controller torque data alone. Presented at VFS Forum 78.

When
2021 – 2022
My role
Undergraduate researcher
Where
AERTS icing facility, Penn State

Small electric rotorcraft don’t have the room or power budget for traditional ice-detection hardware. This campaign asked whether the motor controller, which already measures torque, could tell you when the blades are icing.

We ran a representative eVTOL rotor in the AERTS icing facility across a range of cloud conditions and built the relationship between torque rise and liquid water content that a detection program could use.

What I did

  • Collected electronic speed controller (ESC) torque data and compared it against independently measured torque.
  • Related rotor torque to the liquid water content (LWC) of the icing cloud.
  • Developed a method for quantifying and detecting blade icing from on-board torque data.
  • Presented the work at the 78th Vertical Flight Society Forum in Fort Worth (eVTOL II session).

Photos

The rotor stand inside the AERTS freezing chamber after an icing run.
The rotor stand inside the AERTS freezing chamber after an icing run.
Ice accreted on the stand and blades.
Ice accreted on the stand and blades.
At VFS Forum 78 in Fort Worth, receiving the Frank N. Piasecki Scholarship.
At VFS Forum 78 in Fort Worth, receiving the Frank N. Piasecki Scholarship.
Vertical Flight Foundation scholarship recipients at Forum 78.
Vertical Flight Foundation scholarship recipients at Forum 78.

Publications