Damage detection in composite materials using optical fibers: recent advances in signal processing

This paper is concerned with the passive impact detection system based on fiber Bragg grating sensors which can be either embedded or surface mounted on a composite structure. The focus of the paper is the methodology of the intelligent signal processing for the optical fiber sensor data. This methodology is briefly discussed and illustrated using simple examples which utilize the experimental data. The experimental study involves a series of simple impact tests. The composite panel is installed in a loading fame. An instrumented impactor is used to damage the panel at different positions with different energy levels. For each impact the data from optical fiber sensors is digitized, logged and used for signal processing. The paper shows the importance of the intelligent signal processing for impact damage detection based on optical fiber sensors.