Smart Wing

The objective of the project is to study the feasibility of manufacturing electronic and photonic components, which will be embedded within the outer skin of the wing of an unmanned aircraft ("UA"). UA are used in oil, gas and mineral exploration activities and need to be able to operate in hostile climatic conditions, including the extreme cold of the Arctic, the high humidy in the jungle in the Niger Delta and the extreme heat in the desert regions of North Africa. We plan to embed distributed planar antennas, interconnecting microwave transmission lines and optical fibres, together with a network of sensors, within the multi-layer (consisting of epoxy resin bonded layers of carbon fibre cross weave cloth and glass fibre cloth) skin to form a "smart wing." The embedded sensor network will be used to monitor the state of the wing. The embedded antenna array will be used for 3D electromagnetic imaging of the underlying terrain, without degrading the aerodynamic properties of the wing. This technology will open a new remote survey capability in exploration, and enable an improved detection performance in land and maritime border patrol and in search and rescue activities.