Real-Time Condition Monitoring of an Uncrewed Aerial Vehicle Using a Scattering-Based Specklemeter Interrogator

Growing numbers of uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) in delivery, surveillance, and military applications are driving the need for automated flight inspections. Traditional inspections are done by ground maintenance crew, which limits total number of operational drones. Here we propose a condition monitoring solution combining optical fibre Bragg gratings (FBGs) with a newly developed scattering interrogation system. Our demonstration shows system stability and effective monitoring of strains incurred on the UAV wings during flight.