Design of an active detection system for ice and snow pollutants and freezing temperature on runway

Abstract

This paper studied the problem of ice and snow pollutants identification and freezing temperature detection under winter runway operation, and designed an active detection system for runway ice and snow pollutants and freezing temperature. The temperature change trend during the liquid freezing process was researched, and the freezing temperature detection model based on sequence segmented linear fitting and inflection point identification was proposed in combination with active cooling technology. The differences in dielectric properties of runway snow and ice cover are studied, and a multi-frequency detection-based forked-finger planar capacitive sensor was identified for snow and ice pollutants detection considering practical application scenarios. A finite element simulation model of the forked-finger planar capacitive sensor was established, to optimize the structural parameters of the sensor and verify the feasibility of the capacitor sensor. Finally, the detection device and control system were designed and fabricated, and built an experimental platform for system test. The field experimental results showed that the system has good reliability and stability, and the error of freezing temperature detection model is less than 0.3 °C. At the same time, it can identify three types of pollutants, including water, ice and ice–water mixture, with an accuracy of 89%.