Thirty years ago the Air Force initiated Project Forecast II, a Sagnac fiber optic strain sensor had been used to measure strain fields internal to carbon composites provided by Douglas Aircraft and issues associated with monitoring the structural integrity of the McDonnell Douglas Space Station design all came together to initiate the new field of fiber optic smart structures. This tutorial paper is intended to provide a perspective of how the field originated and has evolved of the past 30 years.

Date Published: 13 May 2015
PDF: 9 pages
Proc. SPIE 9480, Fiber Optic Sensors and Applications XII, 948002 (13 May 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2177968

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9480:
Fiber Optic Sensors and Applications XII
Gary Pickrell; Eric Udd; Henry H. Du, Editor(s)