Reflexive Marine Systems for Autonomous Structural Repair

CRG will develop and implement a composite structural solution with integrated structural health management capabilities enabling damage identification and mitigation through the pairing of three emerging technologies: structural health monitoring (SHM), healable polymer matrix composites, and intelligent controls. Reflexive structures, CRG's healable polymer matrix composites, have previously been developed for application into unmanned air vehicles, enabling a restoration of up to 93% of mechanical performance post-failure and subsequent healing cycle. Using the same design philosophy applied to develop reflexive structures for air vehicles, CRG will develop a composite structural solution capable autonomously monitoring the structural health of the vehicle through an integrated SHM system. The reflexive solution will have an integrated intelligent control system capable of monitoring the data output of the SHM system to determine if an anomaly is, in fact, damage, and, if so, what actions should be taken. Upon identification of damage, the control system will initiate a healing cycle consisting of heat application discretely applied to the damage through an integrated heating element resulting in restoration of up to 93% of mechanical performance. Figure 1 outlines a top-level systems graphic of information flow from damage to response in both a human and in CRG's reflexive structures.