Systems and methods for detecting volcanic ash embedded in water vapor clouds

摘要

Onboard systems and methods for early detection that an aircraft (100) has flown into a volcanic ash plume (104) embedded within a water vapor cloud (102) having a concentration of a volcanic ash (104) which would be dangerous to an aircraft (100). The detection method generally comprises the steps of measuring the infrared emission characteristics of exhaust (318) emissions of a jet engine (316) and generating a detection signal when the intensity of thermal infrared emissions, ie. blackbody radiation, at or near a spectral peak wavelength exceeds a threshold (616,618).