Intelligent Vision Systems: State-of-the-Art Ice Detection Technology

2/13/2017

Climate and Space Science Professor Nilton Renno loves solving problems. And as he readily admits, “I’m always looking for problems related to my research interests that are fun to work on and can have a significant impact on society.”

Renno’s first startup, Electric Field Solutions, was based on electric eld detection technology he developed for NASA’s missions to Mars. Some years later, NASA’s planned landing in Mars’ polar region piqued his interest in ice detection. As a private pilot, he was keenly aware of icing problems and their potentially deadly consequences. “One winter day,” he recalls, “I found my plane frozen on the taxiway and I thought: icing is a problem worth working on.”

Within a year, Renno had led an invention report describing a technology for detecting the presence of ice, super-cooled water and snow. U-M Innovation Partnerships helped him file three patent applications for monitoring ice detection in clouds; on aircraft components; across other modes of transportation; and on roads, bridges, runways, and other surfaces. Working with U-M Innovation Partnerships staff, an approach to commercialize his ideas was constructed and developed.

In 2016, Renno launched Intelligent Vision Systems (IVS) in collaboration with Dexter Research, a local Michigan firm, to develop technology to detect black ice and activate traction control and braking systems for individual vehicles, as well as function as an infrastructure warning system on roads, bridges, runways, and parking lots. IVS is working with several leading aerospace and automotive manufacturers and automotive suppliers to better understand the integration of ice detection technology with their products.

Renno credits U-M Innovation Partnerships with playing a central role in bringing the technology to market. “Transforming a research discovery into a marketable product is not easy,” he says. “U-M Innovation Partnerships provided me the encouragement and resources, from mentoring to intellectual property protection to development funding. It’s great to have these resources and expertise to help transfer my ideas to market.”