SSC - SelfSensingComposites (SSComposites) (IWT587)

The concept of integrating sensing into a material was birthed from the fields of biomimetics, multifunctional materials and structural health monitoring. Biomimetics is "the application of methods and systems found in nature to the study and design of engineering systems and modern technology." [1]

Meanwhile, the field of multifunctional materials seeks to give an engineering material additional functionalities; examples include structural materials with energy harvesting , or permittivity tuning capabilities. Finally, structural health monitoring looks monitor the health of a structure or vehicle through the use of not only sensors, but also computation and analysis.

In designing composites with integrated sensing we look to incorporate both the sensors and the computation inside the composite in a distributed addressable network analogous to that which can be found in an animal nervous system. This demands investigation into several fields of engineering: mechanical, electrical and computational.

Keywords:Holography, Non-Linear Optics, Optival Instrumentation, Optical Computing, Semiconductor Technology, Optical Switches And Modulators, Optical Fibre Sensors, Optical Measurements, Optical Materials, Optical Interconnects, Optical Instrumentation, Vcsels, Micro-Optics, Opto-Electronic Devices, Plastic Photonics, photonics

Disciplines:Optics, electromagnetic theory, Materials science and engineering, Nanotechnology, Classical physics, Applied mathematics in specific fields