ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 11 -- United States Patent no. 12,545,412, issued on Feb. 10, was assigned to RTX Corp. (Farmington, Conn.).
"Optical tip timing sensor used for blade-tip deicing" was invented by Hunter Tomick (Lebanon, Conn.) and Eli Warren (Wethersfield, Conn.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An apparatus includes an optical sensor and at least one controller operably coupled to the optical sensor. The optical sensor is configured to detect a time of arrival (TOA) of a blade while operating in a TOA mode. The at least one controller is configured to determine that conditions on a tip of the blade are subject to icing while the optical sensor is operating in the TOA mode. The at least on...