LAUSR

Purpose The skin and skeleton of aircraft are connected by adhesives or rivets to bear and transfer aerodynamic load. It is easy for crack and fracture damage to occur under the action of cyclic load, thus reducing aircraft bearing capacity/integrity and causing serious security risks. Therefore, it is particularly important that passive wireless radio frequency identification (RFID) sensors be used for the health monitoring of aircraft skin in its whole life cycle. This paper aims to investigate the influence of miniaturization on the coupling effect between RFID tag sensors. Design/methodology/approach Two groups of crack sensing systems based on RFID tags were designed. Gain and mutual impedance of sensor tags were analyzed via mode analysis. The reliability of crack detection of both sensing systems was compared using a preset experimental scheme. Findings Miniaturized antennas can reduce edge influence and the coupling effect. Gain and mutual impedance decrease with the increase in distance between dual tags. Backscatter power shows a decreasing trend and threshold power to activate tags in reader antenna increases. Results show that the miniaturization of size is more suitable for the application of multiple sensors. Originality/value By comparing two groups of sensing systems, the consistency of crack detection sensitivity is better when small tags are placed in parallel, which provides a theoretical basis for the application of small, passive and densely distributed crack sensors in the future.