University of Illinois at Urbana Champain

Michael S. Selig

Main project home page (link no longer valid http://www.aae.uiuc.edu/sis/)

Recent publication - AIAA 2002-0817 (link no longer valid http://amber.aae.uiuc.edu/~m-selig/apasim/pubs/AIAA_Paper_2002-0817.pdf)

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has formed an Aircraft Icing Research Center in the College of Engineering. The purpose of this group is to identify and undertake the basic and applied research necessary to improve the safety of flight in atmospheric icing conditions. An interdisciplinary team of 10 faculty from 3 departments and a variety of disciplines have developed the concept for the UIUC Aircraft Icing Research Center over the last three years. Initial funding was been provided by the University Critical Research Initiatives Program and began on July 1, 1997.

Smart Icing Systems Project: The objective of this research is to improve the safety of aircraft operating in atmospheric (including ground) icing conditions. The approach is to improve the ice tolerance of aircraft by developing autonomous systems which will sense changes in aircraft performance and handling qualities and respond in a human centered fashion to enable the aircraft to maintain control and flight safety. We are conducting the fundamental research necessary to develop such a smart icing systems concept. The funding for this research is being provided by the NASA Glenn Research Center.

The FlightGear Flight Simulator (FGFS) is one of three flight simulators being used in the development of the smart icing system. The other two simulators are being used to aid in the development of core technologies to be ultimately included in FGFS for use in realtime pilot-in-the-loop simulations to study systems integration and human factors issues. To make use of the FGFS, a reconfigurable aircraft model that includes aircraft icing effects was incorporated into the code. The team is currently modeling the NASA Glenn Twin Otter, but overall 15 new aircraft models are available. Only the Twin Otter model includes parameters that model the degradation of flight that can occur in icing conditions.

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