Runway icing prediction method and system development based on ActiveX controls

Abstract

Icing on airport runway is an important issue that affecting the operation of the airport. The research on runway icing is of great significance for ensuring the operation and safety of the airport. Firstly, in this paper, the runway temperature and ice thickness were studied by considering the underground temperature. Then combined with industrial configuration software and ActiveX controls, the runway icing prediction system was designed and verified. Through the analysis of the temperature field inside and outside of the runway as well as the studies of the meteorological factors around the surface and the runway heat exchange, the prediction equation of the runway temperature was obtained. Based on the equation, by using the predicted values of temperature and other factors, the BP neural network was trained to predict the ice thickness of the road in future. Furthermore, this paper designed an airport runway icing prediction system which installed with ActiveX controls where embedded with temperature prediction algorithm and neural network training algorithm. The system used multisensor to collect data, and wireless data transmission via GPRS DTU device. The virtual interface software and the configuration software embedded with algorithm were installed on the industrial PC to realize the prediction. By comparing the prediction of ice thickness with or without underground temperature, the average prediction accuracy of ice thickness by considering underground temperature was 13% higher than that without considering underground temperature, which verified the accuracy and feasibility of the ice prediction system.