Flight Demonstration of Net Electric Charge Control of Aircraft Using Corona Discharge

This article reports on a flight experiment demonstrating the ability to control the net electrical charge of a small unmanned aircraft using ion emission from a corona discharge. The charging mechanism is based on the advection of ions produced by the corona discharge, leaving charge of the opposite polarity on the aircraft. An onboard high voltage power supply of up to $\pm$15 kV was remotely operated to control the level of charging. The high voltage terminal of the power supply was connected to two thin corona wires placed above the aft surface of the wing in the spanwise direction, whereas the low voltage terminal was connected to the conductive airframe. Using this strategy, electric potentials of up to −30 and +23 kV relative to the environment were acquired by the aircraft, using positive and negative corona discharges, respectively. The study addresses the dependencies with power supply bias and wind speed. Possible applications of net charge control include risk reduction of aircraft-triggered lightning strikes, as explored by the authors in prior work, as well as a means of compensating for precipitation static and other sources of charging.