Intelligent fly-by-feel systems for autonomous aircraft

Future intelligent autonomous vehicles like the Orb/eVTOL/UAM (Electric Vertical Takeoff and Landing/Urban Air Mobility) vehicles need the ability to “feel”, “think”, and “react” in real time to enable state-sensing, awareness, and self-diagnostic capabilities in complex dynamic environments to ensure safe operations, reduced maintenance costs, and complete life-cycle management. The proposed STTR will focus on the development and transition of bio-inspired stretchable sensor technologies integrated with composite air vehicle structures to provide the ability for state sensing as well as operational and flight changes to enable Fly-by-Feel sensing capability mimicking the biological bird flight. The team of Acellent (lead) and  Stanford University supported by Boeing and Triumph Aerospace will collaboratively work on this program. In Phase I, the team will develop micro-fabricated stretchable sensor networks, including integrated piezoelectric, strain, and temperature sensors that are designed and monolithically embedded in a composite aircraft structure. In addition, artificial deep learning algorithms integrated with physics-driven models will be developed to interpret the sensing data collected in real time in terms of flight state and health condition of the vehicle. An experimental evaluation and assessment of the intelligent composite structure will be demonstrated through wind tunnel testing. Plans for testing the complete system in Phase II when  integrated with an air vehicle identified in Phase I will also be developed.