Background

Smart Fibres Ltd was established following a highly successful £1.1M collaborative project entitled MAST (Maritime Applications of Smart Structures Technology) that began in 1995. The project partners included BAE Systems who provided the core FBG technology, Aston University who provided Bragg gratings and technical support and end-users Carbospars, manufacturers of carbon-fiber masts for high-performance yachts.

The project brief was to develop fiber optic sensor array technologies using fiber Bragg Gratings (FBG) and the end result was a practical, high-performance system with obvious commercial potential. The first installation of embedded sensors was in the mast of the yacht Smart, which featured on BBC's Tomorrow's World.

Four further successful installations in larger and larger yachts followed and since then, the Company has served customers in many sectors including aerospace, marine, civil engineering, wind power and offshore engineering. We are partners in several collaborative research and development programmes that have kept us at the technical leading edge of our industry. See our Research pages for more information.

Products offered to support our structural monitoring design and engineering service include FBG interrogation units developed in-house and, through a strategic alliance with Micron Optics Inc. of the USA, we also offer and support their complete product range on highly competitive terms.
Furthermore we have developed a range of packaged sensors for measuring strain, temperature and pressure in harsh environments and for embedment or surface mounting to all manner of substrates.