In 1977 McDonnell Douglas Astronautics Company began a project on using fiber optic sensors to support the Delta Rocket program. This resulted in a series of fiber sensors to support the measurement of rotation, acoustics, vibration, strain, and temperature for a variety of applications and early work on fiber optic smart structures. The work on fiber optic smart structures transitioned in part to Blue Road Research in 1993 and continued in 2006 to the present at Columbia Gorge Research. This paper summarizes some of the efforts made by these companies to implement fiber optic smart structures over this forty year period.

Date Published: 4 April 2017
PDF: 10 pages
Proc. SPIE 10166, Industrial and Commercial Applications of Smart Structures Technologies 2017, 1016602 (4 April 2017); doi: 10.1117/12.2249921

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 10166:
Industrial and Commercial Applications of Smart Structures Technologies 2017
Dan J. Clingman, Editor(s)