Currently, in different industrial fields as transport or aerospace, a research effort is lead concerning structural weight reduction. One of the most promising solutions is the use of composite structures and, in particular, the fibers-based composite structures. In the same time, there is an intensification of the operational dynamic environment and an increase of durability requirements. One way to manage this point is to design and manufacture adaptive composite structures. To integrate new functionalities inside mechanical structures, it is necessary to develop a real fully distributed set of transducers and to include them at the heart of composite materials that is to say during the manufacturing process.

In this paper, a design approach based on engineering system theory is developed for fibers-based composite structures including several piezoceramic transducers, electrically independent. These structures are manufactured in our laboratory.
Several characterization needs are identified so as to well-design these complex structures. An experimental non-destructive procedure based on the analysis of anti-resonance and resonance frequencies of the transducers is proposed for determining the initial material coefficients of interest. Moreover, an experimental process is identified to obtain the global mechanical parameters of the fibers-based composites we produced.