Experimental assessment of the ice protection effectiveness of icephobic coatings for a hovering drone rotor

A new installation at the Anti-Icing Materials International Laboratory was developed to study the effects of icing on the degradation of a hovering drone rotor aerodynamic performance and to test different potential ice pro-tection solutions. Following a study on icing parameters effects on aerodynamic performance, this paper studies a methodology developed to assess the performances of coatings as a potential ice protection system under severe icing conditions and rotor speeds up to 4950 RPM. Four different coatings, commercial or under development, were applied to the rotor blades and their effect on the resulting ice accumulation and aerodynamic degradation were measured and compared to those previously obtained on similar, uncoated blades. Results show that passive icephobic coatings in general are a promising solution to limit the negative effect of icing conditions for drone applications, without any additional energy consumption from the system. Moreover, the repeatability assessment of tests under similar conditions and for the same coating showed agreement within +/- 5% between repetitions, showing no signs of ice protection efficiency degradation for any of the tested coatings.