Design of Capacitance and Impedance Dual-Parameters Planar Electrode Sensor for Thin Ice Detection of Aircraft Wings

An ice types recognition and ice thickness detection system was designed based on capacitance and impedance double parameters. By studying the influence of electrode structure on sensor performance based on finite element simulation, the finger electrode was selected with better performance, and a planar electrode sensor was designed suitable for wing thin ice detection. After the thin ice (2.5 mm) making experiment, the capacitance and impedance spectra of three ice types (glaze ice, rime ice and mixed ice) were obtained. Among them, capacitance can reflect the growth of ice well, and the impedance spectra of different ice types are significantly different. Therefore, a capacitance-based regression model and an impedance-based classification model were built. The results of regression model show that about 90% of the calculation error of thin ice thickness is concentrated in the range of [−0.2 mm, 0.2 mm]. Finally, a field test was conducted in the ice wind tunnel to preliminarily determine the system effectiveness.