The Ikhana unmanned aircraft system has been used by NASA last year to fight  wildfires from the sky and this month to provide images of current Californian wildfires to authorities (link to NASA images). But Ikhana is also used to evaluate advanced sensing technology installed on its wings to improve its efficiency. The new sensors, which incorporate fiber optic sensing technology, are located side by side with traditional sensors. As said one NASA researcher, ‘there are 3,000 sensors on Ikhana that are imperceptibly small because they're located on fibers approximately the diameter of a human hair.' But read more…The sensors are so small that they're almost invisible. "Although the new sensors on the Ikhana, which are located on fibers that are the diameter of a human hair, are not visible, the sealant used to apply them can be seen in this view from above the wing." (Credit: NASA photo by Tony Landis) Here are two links to a larger version of this picture and to a Ikhana photo collection.

  For more information about this unmanned aircraft, please visit the Ikhana home page at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center. And for more information about the fiber optic wing shape sensor system installed on Ikhana, here is a link to a recent Dryden news release, "Measuring up to the Gold Standard."

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