着氷・凍雨を検知する新型センサーで航空・自動車安全性向上(Cars and planes could avoid hazardous ice, freezing rain with new sensors)

2026-01-26 ミシガン大学

米国のUniversity of Michiganの研究チームは、航空機や自動車が危険な着氷性降雨(フリージングレイン)を回避できる新型センサー技術を開発した。大気中の過冷却水滴の状態を高精度に検知し、氷結リスクをリアルタイムで評価できるのが特徴である。従来は予測が難しかった着氷環境を事前に把握でき、飛行経路や走行制御の最適化、安全運行の向上に貢献する。航空・交通分野における事故防止と運用効率化への応用が期待される。

着氷・凍雨を検知する新型センサーで航空・自動車安全性向上(Cars and planes could avoid hazardous ice, freezing rain with new sensors)
This sensor fires three infrared lasers into clouds to determine the number and Image credit: Brenda Ahearn, Michigan Engineering.

<関連情報>

新しいタイプの航空機着氷検出システム A new type of aircraft icing detection system

Nilton O. Renno,Roger Backhus,Timothy Butler,Curt Cooper,Kurt A. Hochrein,Rohan Madathil,Louis Marr,Ryan Miller,Paul Mohan,Stephen Musko,Thomas Ryan,Fernando Saca & Jeffrey Zewicke
Scientific Reports  Published:26 January 2026
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-30681-3

Abstract

Ice accretion by the impact of supercooled water drops, or mixtures of these drops with ice, onto an aircraft in flight is a hazard referred to as icing. Aircraft certified to fly in icing conditions like airliners, currently have simplistic icing detection probes. Aircraft certification specifications recently developed in response to the discovery that ice accretion by the impact of supercooled large droplets (SLDs) has caused many aircraft accidents imply the need for an icing detection system (IDS) capable of discerning between ordinary icing conditions and the more hazardous SLD icing conditions. It is desirable that these new IDS be capable of measuring both the ice accretion onto the aircraft and the icing-hazard potential of the atmosphere around the aircraft. We report the development and flight test of an IDS consisting of a microwave resonator unit to measure ice accretion onto the aircraft and an optical unit to estimate the icing-hazard potential of the atmosphere around the aircraft. The results of flight tests in a jet aircraft with reference scientific measurements indicate that our new IDS is capable of detecting ice accretion in the aircraft and of discriminating between common icing conditions and the more hazardous SLD icing conditions.

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