Smart structures with nerves of glass

Aircraft and space platforms in the 21st century will probably be smart structures capable of sensing both their state and their environment. Networks of optical fibres will constitute an effective nervous system collecting sensory information from structurally integrated arrays of fibre optic sensors associated with each structural component. It is expected that the structural integrity of these smart structures would be monitored throughout their life. During manufacture and installation their built-in sensors would check for flaws or mishandling and therefore provide quality control. In operation their stress and thermal history would be constantly monitored to warn of impact damage, excessive loading or the onset of fatigue. These intelligent damage assessment systems could make obsolete the catastrophic failures that sometimes plague our aircraft, trains and cars today and lead to a revolution in engineering ethics. Structurally integrated optical fibre sensors could also provide the strain, displacement and deformation information required for many control situations. In some of these instances optical control signals might counterstream along these same optical paths to arrays of actuators. In the case of advanced aircraft real time monitoring of the aerodynamic load distribution combined with the extremely fast flight control made possible with distributed arrays of small actuators might permit the aircraft to respond instantly to turbulence. Another potential application is shape sensing and vibration monitoring for dynamic control of large space structures.