While classical nondestructive testing (NDT) covers individual test tasks by means of static procedures (= "traditional" signal processing), emerging needs of tests, available sensors technology and increasing quantity of data demand a more efficient processing approach that is meant to be introduced as “NDT 4.0”: the extraction of smart materials data.

NDT 4.0 shall be deemed to denote the consideration of the holistic product life cycle, whereby prior knowledge of a product’s past and future contribute significantly to the data acquisition beforehand. Based on adaptive or cognitive sensors, the system selects the appropriate modality autonomously, i.e., the type of acquisition, uses a digital product memory (for the purpose of Industry 4.0) and enables a lossless data reduction due to compressed sensing.

The current project attempts to transfer academic findings into the environment of industrial production’s smart materials data acquisition with the aim to generate innovative sensors technology combined with practically relevant unique features.