Low Power, Hybrid Pneumatic/Electrothermal Deicing System for the MQ-9 Vehicle

In Phase I, Invercon experimentally demonstrated three, low power deicing approaches for MQ-9 that all combine a low ice adhesion strength coating with additional mechanisms to successfully shed accreted ice. One particularly successful, retrofittable system employs a stiff, exterior, composite shell combined with a low ice adhesion strength coating. The systems performance is further improved in certain icing conditions with the addition of a heatable, leading edge parting strip yielding a new hybrid pneumatic/electrothermal system. Invercons system can be operated in two modes: pneumatically or electropneumatically. The pneumatic mode asymmetrically fractures accreted leading edge ice periodically, thus providing continuous deicing using extremely low power (250 W). The electropneumatic mode will activate the anti-icing parting strip to maintain an ice-free leading edge while pneumatically causing periodic shell deformations to shed accreted ice on either side of the airfoil using less than 1 kW. The hybrid system can be operated in a variety of combinatory modes depending on the icing conditions encountered. The goal of the Phase II will be to demonstrate the systems full-chord performance in NASA Glenns IRT facility under all representative icing conditions using no more than the equivalent of 1 kW on MQ-9.