Current and potential future research activities in adaptive structures: an ARO perspective

The Army Research Office (ARO) has been supporting projects focusing on basic research in the area of smart materials and adaptive structures over recent years. A major emphasis of the ARO's Structures and Dynamics Program has been on the theoretical, computational, and experimental analysis of smart structures and structural dynamics, damping, active control, and health monitoring as applied to rotorcraft, electromagnetic antenna structures, missiles, land vehicles, and weapon systems. The variety of research projects supported by the program have been primarily directed towards improving the ability to predict, control, and optimize the dynamic response of complex, multi-body deformable structures. The projects in the field of smart materials and adaptive structures have included multi-disciplinary research conducted by teams of several faculty members as well as research performed by individual investigators.