Printing electronics directly onto carbon fiber composites: unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) wings with integrated heater for de-icing

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly used to deliver items and gather information in remote areas. As a result, UAVs suffer from ice accumulation on their wings, which drastically affects their flight. However, the UAV industry is still relatively young and, thus, commercial solutions for de-icing on UAVs are limited. The use of carbon fiber composites is becoming increasingly ubiquitous for UAVs as well as many other industries such as military, construction, medical, automobile, sporting goods and aircraft systems. Carbon fiber is commercially available in various forms, including single yarns, braids and weaves, which are similar to traditional textiles. This paper presents a method to create a self-heating composite structure that can be integrated into UAV wings for de-icing by exploiting the thermal and electrical conductivity of carbon fiber. Extrusion printing is used to fabricate electrical contacts directly on the carbon fiber weave. Extrusion printing on textiles faces multiple challenges that are overcome in this paper. A method is presented to extrusion print conductive paste on textiles. Specifically, carbon fiber weaves. This manufacturing method is employed to fabricate carbon fiber-based heating devices, and they are characterized electrically and thermally.