Abstract Market research predicts a large growth in numbers of passengers as well as airfreight volume for the aircraft industry. An expected concomitant increase in competition for the European aircraft industry demands that the efficiency of new aircraft has to be drastically improved. One approach to achieve this is the aerodynamic optimisation of the wing. The fixed wing is designed optimally only for one flight condition. This flight condition is described by the parameters altitude, Mach number and aircraft weight which vary continuously during the mission of the aircraft. Therefore, the aircraft is just periodically near the chosen design point. To compensate for this major disadvantage, an adaptive wing for optimal adaptation and variation of the profile geometry to the actual flight conditions is under development. DaimlerChrysler Aerospace Airbus, DaimlerChrysler Research and the German Aerospace Centre (DLR) are working as project partners on concepts for a variable camber and a local spoiler bump. In this paper structural concepts developed by the German Aerospace Centre for both objectives will be presented. The concepts are designed under the aspect of adaptive structural systems and require a high integration of actuators, sensors and controllers in the structure. Special aspects of the design will be discussed and first results, analytical, numerical as well as experimental, will be presented. Part of the concept design is also the development of new actuators optimised for the specific problem. A new actuator concept for the spoiler bump based on a cylindrical tube and activated either by pressure or multifunctional materials (e.g. shape memory alloys) will additionally be shown.