Patent ID: 8462354

Claim:
A method for aircraft surface contamination detection and measurement, said method comprising: mounting a laser probe on a first surface of an airfoil; positioning the laser probe to emit laser energy at a plurality of pre-determined surface points along a leading edge of the airfoil, wherein an area bounded by said surface points comprises a surface target area from which to reflect the emitted laser energy at a plurality of calibrated receiving sensors to measure a difference in the location of the reflected laser energy caused by wing contamination from icing; wherein the laser probe comprises at least one laser emitter for emitting the laser energy at the plurality of pre-determined surface points of the airfoil; using a processor device for: activating the laser probe to emit the laser energy to the surface target area; obtaining measurement data for generating a surface contour of the surface target area by: generating a first referential measurement of the surface target area by analyzing the reflected energy location; for each subsequent activation of the laser probe: generating a differential measurement of the surface contour of the surface target area; calculating a different measurement as a difference between the first referential measurement and the differential measurement; storing the measurement data; determining that a surface contamination event has been detected if the difference measurement exceeds a pre-determined amount; and transmitting information about the surface contamination event, said information comprising the measurement data.