Flexible smart sensing skin for “Fly-by-Feel” morphing aircraft

Flexible smart sensing skin is a key enabling technology for the future “Fly-by-Feel” control of morphing aircraft. It represents the next-generation skin of aircraft that can exhibit a more powerful sensing function than a conventional one and could be mounted on arbitrary curvilinear surfaces, especially for advanced autonomic, morphing aircraft. Recent significant technical advances in flexible electronics have overcome many historic drawbacks of conventional smart skin, e.g., only a limited number of discrete block sensors can be integrated due to the inevitable structural damage and heavy guidelines. Herein, we review the key developments in flexible sensors technology and highlight both the state-of-the-art devices and the potential applications for the measurement of aircraft. We begin with the importance of flexible smart skin for morphing aircraft and then expand to the latest progress in various types of flexible sensors. Then we highlight flexible sensors as smart skin to measure aerodynamic parameters and monitor the structural health, and further to achieve the Fly-by-Feel control. Finally, the challenges and opportunities on flexible smart sensing skin are discussed, from the functional design to practical applications.