Development of Adaptive Control for Pulse-Electro Thermal De-Icing

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De-icing or defrosting a transparent windshield is a critical operation concern in many applications such as cars, airplanes,**locomotive, and sea vessels. The de-icing process in these applications consumes excessive time and energy due to the variable**parameters that affect the frost formation such as ambient conditions, windshield geometry, and the vehicle speed. Pulse-Electro**Thermal De-Icing (PETD) technique is proposed as an advantageous method that can remove the ice efficiently in a very short**time period. PETD technique utilises a powerful electrical pulse that leads to melting the interfacial layer of ice at the contact**surface between the frost and windshield glass. Pre-set controllers wont provide premium efficiency and may require manual**adjustment from the end user because the efficiency of the PETD technique depends on many variable parameters such as the**outside temperature, frost type and thickness, windshield geometry and inclination as well as the power availability. Hence,**adaptive control approach is needed to modulate the necessary output parameters such as the pulse power, frequency, duty cycle**and distribution based on the variable input parameters. This adaptive control unit should instantaneously measure these external**parameters and run them through internal control algorithm in order to provide the optimum output parameters to achieve the best**efficiency. Therefore, the objective of this research project is to develop an adaptive control strategy that can effectively be used to**operate the PETD technique in an automotive windshield.**