About the event organisation

The Final Dissemination Event of the SENS4ICE project was successfully held on Wednesday 29 November 2023 in Brussels, at the premises of the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD) of the European Commission (EC). The event was aimed to present the project final results contributing to ensuring safe aviation in icing environment. It was addressed to professionals involved in any aspect of aircraft icing, from research and innovation, through icing wind tunnel, ground and flight tests until certification.

The Final Dissemination Event was the third in the series of public gatherings organised by the SENS4ICE consortium and dedicated to disseminating the project results to the icing community: the first symposium was organised in October 2020, the second one in June 2023.

The first part of the event was organised around a series of presentations from SENS4ICE. Top-class research and industry experts from the project shared their views on the technologies that were developed to detect Supercooled Large Droplet (SLD) icing conditions, either aiming to detect ice accretion on the aircraft or relevant atmospheric icing conditions. A hybrid ice detection was also developed, combining different detection technologies, including an indirect ice detection algorithm based on online aircraft flight performance evaluation. SENS4ICE experts also showcased the results from the icing wind tunnel and flight test campaigns that were performed during the project.

After that, a conclusive discussion session addressing aircraft icing technology gaps and future research needs took place with invited presentations from external experts from two sister Horizon 2020 projects MUSIC-haic and ICE GENESIS, from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), as well as future EU icing research strategy considerations from an aircraft icing stakeholder group. The session was moderated by Carsten Schwarz and Christoph Deiler (DLR).

The full list of presentations given during the event is provided below.

Presentation of the SENS4ICE technologies and testing activities

• Overview of SENS4ICE project: SENSors and certifiable hybrid architectures FOR safer aviation in ICing Environment, presented by the SENS4ICE Project Coordinator Carsten Schwarz (German Aerospace Center - DLR).
• Supercooled Large Droplet (SLD) icing wind tunnel tests results, presented by El Hassan Ridouane (Collins Aerospace).
• SLD icing flight test campaigns results including atmosphere characterization, presented by Aurélien Bourdon (CNRS / Météo-France), Daniel Martins da Silva (Embraer) and Johannes Lucke (German Aerospace Center - DLR).
• Icing detection technologies evaluation: Hybrid Ice Detection and Indirect Ice Detection, presented by Annagrazia Orazzo (Safran Aerosystems) and Christoph Deiler (German Aerospace Center -  DLR).
• Icing detection technologies evaluation - Remote ice detection, presented by Alessandra Lucia Zollo (Italian Aerospace Research Center – CIRA).
• Icing detection technologies evaluation – Direct ice detection solutions:
  • Adaptive Icing Patch (AIP), presented by Ian Roberts (AeroTex UK)
  • Ice Differentiator System (IDS), presented by El Hassan Ridouane (Collins Aerospace)
  • Local Ice Layer Detector (LILD), presented by Martin Pohl (German Aerospace Center - DLR)
  • Short Range Particulate (SRP), presented by Pavel Badin (Honeywell International SRO)
  • Fiber Optic Detector (FOD), presented by Malte Frövel (Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aeroespacial – INTA)
  • Atmospheric Hydrometeor Detector based on Electrostatics (AHDEL), presented by Rafael Sousa Martins (ONERA)
  • Atmospheric Measurement of Potential and ElectRic field on Aircraft (AMPERA), presented by Rafael Sousa Martins (ONERA)
  • Primary in-Flight Icing Detection System (PFIDS), presented by Stephan Le Garrec (Safran Aerosystems)
• SENS4ICE project conclusions, presented by the SENS4ICE Project Coordinator Carsten Schwarz (German Aerospace Center - DLR).

Invited presentations by external experts

• MUSIC-haic EU project, presented by Philippe Villedieu (ONERA).
• ICE GENESIS EU project, presented by Estelle Laine (Airbus).
• EASA presentation on aircraft icing research needs, presented by Esther Garcia Gonzalez (EASA, and member of the SENS4ICE Advisory Board).
• Considerations on future EU icing research strategy aligned with the European aviation industry, certification authorities and research clusters, presented by Stephan Bansmer (Coldsense Technologies).

Conclusion and outlook

The SENS4ICE Final Dissemination Event raised great interest within the icing community, which was also proven by the number of attendees – more than 60 people – and by the numerous questions and discussions triggered by the presentations. 

The event was concluded with insights and recommendations from EC Policy Officers about follow-up funding opportunities in this field of research. As a matter of fact, the SENS4ICE consortium partners are eager to pursue research and innovation activities in this field. For instance, it was agreed that further improving the understanding, forecasting and nowcasting capabilities is necessary, particularly for Appendix O/ SLD conditions, as sufficient inputs are not available today. To this end, further extensive data collection with enhanced icing wind tunnels and in natural icing conditions in-flight is required. The attendees came to an agreement that collaborative work like the one carried out in SENS4ICE is still needed to bring the technologies to higher readiness levels.

Hence, SENS4ICE Project Coordinator, Carsten Schwarz, stated: "We have made considerable progress and reached such a high momentum with the SENS4ICE achievements. This appears not to be the end of a project, but rather a beginning of a new phase of advanced progress for aircraft icing research and innovation".

It was an absolute pleasure for the SENS4ICE consortium to meet and network with all attendees. We would like to give special thanks to all presenters from the SENS4ICE project for sharing their experience, all invited speakers for contributing to the discussions, the SENS4ICE EC Project Officer Hugues Felix from the European Climate, Infrastructure and Environment Executive Agency (CINEA) for his constant and empowering support to the project over the five years, and the DG RTD for providing a state-of-the-art meeting room for this final event.

Please note that the SENS4ICE presentations and the external presentations will be available soon on the project website.