SHM System for Multilevel Impact Detection of Full-Scale Composite Wing Box

This paper presents the structural health monitoring (SHM) system applied to a 9 m composite outer wing box (OWB) specifically designed for a brand-new regional aircraft to detect barely visible impact damage (BVID) based on structural response data. The approach relies on different technologies to offer multilevel diagnosis, including impact detection as well as disbonding identification, localization, and sizing. The use of different sensing techniques based on piezoelectric transducers and distributed fiber optic sensors deployed all over wing structures is explored. Different features are simultaneously extracted from the propagating waves and from light scattering, able to detect low-energy BVID impact. In addition, the combined use of static and dynamic interrogation allows the estimation of the delamination surface after impact with good accuracy. The final test results on the OWB provided effectiveness in detecting, localizing, and tracking impact damage in the composite structure, ensuring long-term reliability and safety, as well as characterizing barely visible damage by a fully integrated onboard SHM system. © 2026 by the authors.