Robust Atmospheric Ice Detection System (RAIDS)

**Safety**

In-flight icing presents a significant challenge for safe flight and has contributed to several accidents. Topics of particular interest to the aerospace community are, Supercooled Large Droplets (SLD) that resulted in the loss of American Eagle Flight 4184, and Ice Crystal Icing (ICI) conditions that resulted in the loss of Air France Flight 447\. These hazards caused icing to occur in locations or at a rate that the aircraft were not designed for. Therefore, robust detection of SLD and ICI is a high priority for the aerospace industry.

**Green Ice Protection Systems**

In addition to the icing safety challenges, ice protection systems can consume a larger proportion of available onboard power. Even relatively small aircraft can consume 100's of kilowatts. Reduction of this power is an area of intense research as part of the move to greener aviation.

**Robust Atmospheric Ice Detection System (RAIDS)**

RAIDS is designed to play a part in addressing both challenges by:

* Rapidly detecting both the presence and severity of hazardous, standard, SLD and ICI icing conditions
* Producing a small, low-power sensor that can be used to locally detect ice and therefore focus power in areas where ice protection is needed whilst matching or improving the level of safety vs. existing systems.

A prototype of the concept has been demonstrated under a research and development programme that included both icing wind tunnel and flight test. Under this NATEP programme, new detection technology, manufacturing methods and sensor configurations shall be developed to ensure RAIDS can address all the challenges fully.