Description: Michigan Aerospace Corporation proposes to develop an integrated LIDAR instrument capable of identifying icing conditions while also providing air data sensing capabilities. The resulting Raman Icing Detection System (RIDES) will be an integrated air data sensing and icing condition detection instrument, providing a backup to the Pitot tubes potentially affected by icing, thus providing redundancy for critical information. The proposed solution will operate without protrusions into the flow, behind a flush mounted window on the skin of the aircraft, mitigating the risk of ice build-up during operation. This project will utilize MAC's extensive heritage of rugged LIDAR system design and construction.

Benefits: For NASA's own use, the system resulting from this effort will allow better studies of icing by giving clearer indications of the actual conditions outside a test aircraft in real time, providing safer and more accurate means of studying icing conditions.

Outside NASA, military and civil aviation is often affected by icing, sometimes severely (e.g., Comair flight 3272 in 1997, Air France flight 447 in 2009) and the ability to detect these conditions so as to avoid or at least account for them (activating de-icing systems, etc.) would be of tremendous safety value, suggesting a substantial market. Michigan Aerospace Corporation is already working on a NASA projects for clear-air turbulence (CAT) detection ahead of aircraft. Adding SLD to these optical air data system (OADS)-derived capabilities will lead to a powerful suite of optical instruments capable of measuring air data (air speed and direction along with air density and temperature) and warning of icing conditions and clear-air turbulence, all without protruding into the flow around the aircraft and without ports or probes that can clog with debris or ice up.