Abstract: Fabrication of conformal sensors for curved surfaces is important in structural health monitoring of three-dimensional components. However,attaching sensors to a curved surface by transfer printing is difficult to ensure the accuracy of position and orientation. Therefore, a five-axis motion platform was combined with the Direct Ink Writing (DIW) process to directly printing conformal sensor arrays on non-expanded curved surfaces. Firstly, a sensor printing process and developed motion control algorithm was proposed. Secondly,a multilayer structure of sensor array was printed on a UAV blade to detect the strain,and the data was compared with a finite element model. The results showed that the monitoring data matches well with the simulated data in terms of trend and error is less than 15 %,proving that the sensor is capable of monitoring the strain on the surface of the components. Finally,the sensor array was printed on the surface of a propeller with greater curvature to illustrate the high adaptability and the wide range of application scenarios of the scheme.

Key words: curved surface fabricate, DIW, conformal trajectory, sensor array